Phoenix's Ashes
by Auster
Summary: The ex-Pharaoh learns that fire doesn't have to kill you to take your life. YYxY.
1. Prologue

Phoenix's Ashes

Prologue

Soft warmth.

Smooth sheets.

Lazy shadows behind the eyelids of a drowsy mind.

Bliss.

It was the favourite part of his day. After all the difficulties of the day were over and all he had to do was rest. Bathing in the twilight moments between sleep and waking.

A small frown.

But one thing was missing.

The frown deepened. What was it?

The quiet swish of a door opening, almost silent footsteps across plush carpet.

A small sigh as deft fingers touched his cheek, brushing away floppy hair from closed eyes.

The affectionate touch, as gentle as a feather, lowered to caress his neck, just below his ear. His shadow of a frown turning into a sated little smile.

"Yuugi." The gentle whisper of a deep voice caressing his ears and sleep fogged mind. He slept still.

"Aibou." The gentle voice was amused now. He didn't want to wake up; he had found what he was looking for.

But he would do anything for his yami.

One tired eye cracked open halfway before stopping abruptly as a lead weight seemed to pull it closed again. Damn he was tired.

He missed the crimson eyes of his other softening with unmistakeable fondness.

"Hikari." He asked again almost completing the collection of nicknames he had for Yuugi.

Said boy opened one eye again and this time when it reached halfway he managed to make it stay there.

"Hai." He replied, a small yawn punctured his word making it almost indistinguishable but his yami understood.

His yami always understood.

"I have to go out for a few hours Aibou, it appears the others have gotten themselves into no small amount of trouble." He tried to hide his distain for the blonde's antics from his voice; Yuugi was tired.

Yuugi did not ask what his yami meant knowing he probably didn't want to find out.

"'ere you going?" his voice slurred under sleeps instructions. He heard a sigh.

"Too far from your side little one for my liking. But I shall be back before dawn breaks I promise." The voice was so soft and caring, how could he not trust?

He closed his eyes again, "m'kay." He was too sleepy to say much.

His other's expression softened even more, "I'll return as soon as I can Hikari."

Another little smile crossed Yuugi's lips as his yami moved silently across the room. He was asleep before the door closed.

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He re-entered the state of mind between dreams and reality with the sensation that something was wrong.

Groggily Yuugi pried open his eye again. A pleasantly dark room met his fuzzy thoughts and he raised his head slightly of the pillow and frowned, nothing was wrong. Everything was as it should be. The messy room of a teenage boy was perfectly normal.

Yuugi snuggled back up to his pillow and moved his gaze to the skylight. The sky was clear, little stars twinkled like bright promises painted upon an inky black canvas.

A crescent moon moved slowly across the rectangle of glass giving his room a surreal glow. He closed his eyes again.

Nothing was wrong; everything was as it should be.

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Heat.

Course air grating at his lungs.

Noise.

Flickers of deadly light behind his eyelids.

No, wrong! Terrible, terrible wrong!

Yuugi woke quite suddenly. Severed from his dream's images by a fit of hacking coughs.

He fell out of bed, still coughing, and attempted to stand.

Noise. Too much noise! Crackling and roars and the splintering of wood.

Thick black air clawing like a vicious animal at his tightly shut eyelids as tears sprung to their corners. Yuugi had attempted to open them and immediately they snapped shut again.

Dark, dark swirls of smoke. Light, bright golds and reds and oranges and ambers flaring from under the door, contrasting horribly with the soft silky moonlight now hidden from view.

Nasty, evil, dark, light, go away!

Yuugi fell to the floor again unable to break the barrier in his mind between panic and confusion to rational thoughts.

Wrong! It was all wrong!

A defining bang from far away or close by. He could not tell.

More coughing, wrenching up black soot from a burning throat, his voice was lost. As was his sight.

Blind panic was overtaking confused misunderstanding at the loss of his senses as smell was lost to the black, burning, terrible sent and hearing overwhelmed by the roars and crackling and the wailing of spirits already lost.

He crawled blindly, unaware of even his own movements, until something white hot flared across his hands and stomach.

Pain. Utter undiluted agony. It mixed with the panic and confusion, flaring like wildfire throughout his small body and leaving a traumatized mind in its wake.

The boy scrabbled backwards scraping his knees and burnt hands.

Black smoke surrounding him. Inside him now. Snuffing out his light, his life.

No! A sudden spurt of crystal clear realisation shot through his befuddled thoughts. No he couldn't die, he couldn't! Not now, not like this!

Noise. More noise. From outside now?

No! Make it go away! Make it go! Where was his yami! He wanted his yami!

Unbearable heat.

Defining noise.

Evil light.

Endless darkness.

Choking on smoke and writhing in agony.

Confusion and panic and utterly terrified.

There was no air left. Only desperation. Only darkness.

Darker and darker… a… light?

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(hiding) okay and before you all kill me let me remind you this _is_ a prologue. Yuugi isn't gone. I already have the first chapter written all it needs is to be typed and perfected (to be honest I'm not that happy with this prologue so it may be changed at one point. Or whenever I get off my lazy arse to do it.) so it should be up soon. Within a week or so (or as soon as I get a break from that cess pit known as work).

Review please!


	2. Chapter One

Okay so I lied Yuugi is dead. But he isn't by any means gone so don't hurt me. I was originally planning on this story to go in a completely different direction but then I had another idea that sounded better, if a little more farfetched. Actually it's very farfetched but it wouldn't be fiction otherwise would it? Eventually I might write the original plot line of this but that's only if my other stuff gets more support: I really don't understand why the story I hate the most out the three I have gets more support then the other two put together. Over one hundred hits but only one reviewer (By the way: Special Thanks to Kyo lover with little sanity for your reviews and everyone who reviewed this too), is it laziness or is it just bad? I don't understand. But again I'm rambling so on with the chapter!

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-Gi-Oh, which I don't, do you really think I'd be here?

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter One**

A church bell struck twelve; noon in Domino City Japan but few people heard its chimes.

No rushes of people left the doors of office blocks eager to begin the lunch hour. The streets were silent save a few cautiously moving cars.

The reason? It was a Sunday. But the greater reason to stay indoors was the storm overhead. Black and deep grey clouds covered every inch of blue sky almost completely blocking out the sunlight and giving the impression of night. Forks of lightning flashed as a regular occurrence across the dismal clouds followed seconds later by loud rumbles and cracks of thunder that sounded as if the very earth were being ripped asunder. The rain fell in great torrents, huge droplets that soaked the world in seconds as wave after wave fell from the heavens.

No one was outside save those few desperate people. The parks and streets were empty as the cities citizens huddled up to any source of warmth or loved ones for comfort in what was bound to be the worst storm of the year.

All except one.

On the cities outskirts, as the mountains began to rise, lay a huge cemetery. The rich green sides of the lower mountain were covered in shrines and old graves, interrupted almost regularly by old Japanese oaks.

A shadowed figure knelt under one of the oldest oaks of the city in front of which a new white marble slab had been placed, almost leaning against the trunk.

Originally the figure had stood with others, surrounding the tree as a priest scattered the ashes of a young boy in front of the intricately carved stone memorial and around the slight hill on which the oak grew.

After the ceremony most of the crowd had left mourning and lamenting the loss in wailing cries or shivering silence. Few had remained. A tall blond next to an even taller brunette, a single blue eyed woman, a delicate albino near a golden skinned Egyptian and a pair of shimmering counter parts behind them, ghost like forms unwilling to take physical bodies and disturb the silent grief of the figure closest to the memorial stone.

Hours had passed before the brunette finally led his blonde partner away. The blue eyed woman, silent in her devastation, seemed like a ghost when she left. Floating from the hill with all the qualities of a lifeless image. The Egyptian left soon after from the coaxing of his other half. The ghost-like almost twin that was his companion unable to even imagine what a yami's life would be like after the loss of his hikari.

The albino had attempted to persuade the ex-Pharaoh to come home with them instead, seeing as now he had nowhere to live. But he received no response or even acknowlegement of their presence. He had sighed and left too, his spirit giving one last, uncharacteristically worried glance to the broken man.

As the sun had set that night Yami had finally fallen, the normally strong and confident posture dissolved and he buried his face into dark-skinned hands. The night had echoed his cries of anguish until they passed into silent sobs as dawn broke. It felt as if there were a gaping hole in his chest.

The sun had travelled across the sky as the trembling body fell still, passing into grief beyond tears and beyond action. Time held no meaning to him anymore. He hadn't moved when the sun was blocked from view by the gathering clouds, he hadn't twitched when bitterly cold wind blasted from the east and hadn't even blinked when thunder ripped open the sky then fell as rain and soaked his clothes. The water mixed with tearstains on cheeks and seemed to soak into the grass in front of him as if willing the ash to return to the ground. How sickeningly ironic that the rain would come now, when the one he loved beyond words but had never told lay as dust on the ground from the remains of an inferno. Conflicting elements, never wanted when they come yet prayed for when they don't.

A movement finally shattered the image of the frozen man. A pair of clouded, lost looking eyes spilled tears once more as he glanced up from under golden strands of hair, now plastered against his head from the rain. A trembling hand rose from his lap and traced the name on the gravestone with numb fingers.

Here Lies Yuugi Motou.

May His Soul Find Peace.

They had cremated him. Yuugi had always said he would have preferred cremation to being buried in the cold hard ground, but in light of what had happened they weren't too sure. They had done it anyway but with a private memorial stone that looked more suited to a western-style burial then a cremation. It was a white marble stone; they thought it would suit him.

Yuugi had not burned to death in the fire; the blaze had not reached his room, though parts of his skin had been scorched from a flash flare that blew half of the door off. It was the smoke that had caused his heart to stop, the smog he must have been breathing for a while when he was still asleep. Yami would always remember that morning. The dread, the undulated horror when he arrived home to find it surrounded by firemen and the police and ambulances. The police having to use force to stop him from running headlong into the blazing house to find Yuugi. When they carried the prone figure out on a stretcher from the smoking building. How not even five fully-grown men could stop Yami from tearing back the white sheet: the moment he saw the cold pale skin was forever burned into his memory.

He had lost everything.

His home, half his soul, his hikari, even the Puzzle. The Sennen Puzzle… there was another enigma. It had gone. Simply disappeared. He had thought he would die without the Puzzle and Yuugi. He should have died without one let alone both. But he didn't, he was here, he was…

…No. He could not say he was alive. Yuugi was his life, his reason to keep going. Maybe he should just have gone into the afterlife after all; maybe it was time he took his own life. He wanted to, by the gods did he want to. But he knew he could not, the shadows would never allow it.

His magic was week now. He could still summon the shadows but they would never be as potent as before. It didn't matter, he had already failed in his tasks, failed to protect his charge, his little one.

More sobs shook the soaked body. The rain continued to fall.

The Puzzle was gone. It had not been in its rightful place around Yuugi's neck, although the faint red chain marks around his neck suggested it had been until the last moment, and no remains could be found in the house when Ryou and Marik had searched with their yami's help later the next day. Their Items would have sensed the presence of another even if it _was _destroyed in the fire. They had found nothing but a faint trace of powerful old magic in Yuugi's bedroom.

Yami couldn't stand it anymore. The guilt, the shame, the loss and aguish was eating him alive. It felt like something hot and terrifying was choking him. The great hole in his chest was threatening to consume his spirit entirely. He had to do something. Anything! He could not stay here; he could not stay in a city that held so many memories. He could not continue to live in a place where every sight, no matter how mundane, would bombard him with images of what had been and fantasies of what could have become his future.

No. If he had to exist then he could not exist like that. He had to go. He had to. His friends would understand wouldn't they? When they finally raised their heads enough from their own grief and guilt to see what he had done they would understand.

The other yamis especially would know what had driven him to this.

Cold fingers trailed with a lifeless, loving touch over the stone, "I'm sorry Yuugi." His voice sounded strange even to him, "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you." More tears fell as his voice cracked, the hot choking feeling around his throat intensifying, after a moment he continued, his voice horse and strained, "Forgive me Hikari no Tenshi. Forgive me for loving you."

With that he stood with surprising force and lay a single glass rose at the foot of the stone, "Watch over the others for me tenshi and guide them through their grief and in their lives… please."

And then he turned and ran from the hill, the cemetery, and the city. Ran blindly in the rain, numb to his body's physical pain, towards a destination he did not know. He wanted only to run, to force himself into some kind of trance in which all things were silly and inconsequential.

And as the sun, hidden by the clouds, once more began it's decent towards the horizon a small white flame flickered like a candle before the oak and above the rose, unaffected by the rain and unseen by human eyes.

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**AN:** See. Yuugi isn't gone. He's just a little lost at the moment. This chapter is quite short but I wanted to get the ball rolling from it's stubborn little rut called writers block, the next one, when it comes out, should be longer. This is the only story I have that doesn't posses a definite plot line so updates will most likely be sporadic and slow. I know what I want to do but not how to get to it. I might do some chapters from the points of view of the others i.e. Jounouchi, Anzu, Ryou and Kaiba.

Please Review. I need feedback if I am to continue.


	3. Chapter Two

Right then, apologies and excuses. Anyone remember that 5th of November rhyme? You know the one that goes _'remember, remember the fifth of November.'_ Well the 5th of November was Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Night, Fireworks Night, whatever you want to call it) and obviously I was out most of the weekend watching fireworks, getting the skin of my face melted off because I was stood too close to the bonfire (now I know why there's always a rail around that thing) and generally doing what most teenagers do – not remember most of it and wake up next morning with one hell of a hangover. Yay! But after that there isn't much of an excuse other then the fact that Jounouchi was being very awkward with me and wouldn't get down on paper no matter how much I begged. This has a lot of background in it but hopefully that's not going to make it boring, I was trying to make the situation sound suitably hopeless and grief worthy. I hope this is okay...

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Two**

He remembered the time before he met Yuugi. It had been a bleak time.

His mother had just split from his father, taking Serenity with her and swearing never to come within sixty feet of the city ever again. Jounouchi had never understood his mother, but he had loved her, he still did not understand her but he was no longer entirely certain of that love. She had left his idiot of a father, that he understood, but what he could never comprehend was why she had taken his little sister with her to protect her from the man and yet left her eldest son in his care without seemingly a second thought. Jounouchi hurt for years after that. He received no contact from his mother and absolutely no attempt to rescue him from the drunken layabout of a parent; did she not love him?

Apparently not.

He knew he was cruel to think such things about her but what other conclusion was he supposed to come to? She had separated him from Serenity when he was only ten years old to be influenced by a now violent father. He was not sure about that love for her anymore.

He had originally met Yuugi only a few months after. Well 'met' was probably the wrong word to use. He had seen him from a distance in class and always wondered why the boy was alone. He had at first sympathised and related to Yuugi, as it seemed the same could be said for him, he was alone too. But then something had happened and his father had left numerous bruises in a particularly severe fit of rage and he began to dislike Yuugi. Yuugi was lucky, he was alone so he didn't have to bother with other people's problems, he was always unmarked so he didn't have to worry about going home, and he always had that strange smile on his face when either working on one of his games or being addressed by a teacher or student (the latter of which was very rare). Yuugi had no problems. He wasn't like Jounouchi.

As they got older and progressed through school Jounouchi's life got no better, he fell in with 'the wrong crowd' and ended up in a gang thanks to his now violent and irrational temper. His father had gotten worse.

And yet he noticed as Yuugi's smiles grew less and less common and more and more fake, he noticed the now recently appearing bruises and limps, but he knew that he really didn't care. It was, after all, Yuugi's fault that he was so weak; if he just fought back once in a while he wouldn't be such a bully magnet. And it wasn't as if Yuugi's family were the ones beating him, Jounouchi knew that it was mainly a senior, Ushio, who was more akin to a walking boulder then a human.

He surprised himself when he started beating Yuugi too. Honda had goaded him into it, but he knew that it was unfair to blame the brunette; he was the one who lead them after all.

Who would have guessed that the walking boulder would actually bring them together?

Who would have guessed that Yuugi would risk his life to save his abuser?

He never understood why after a person had died it was as if it became sacrilegious to say even the smallest bad thing about them. That, at first at least, you had to say only good things about their life, you had to mourn the person; even if you hated them in life, you had to mourn their death. How long was it that you had to wait before you were morally allowed to speak up about what someone was really like? Surely it was more honourable to _them_ to say what you thought of them from the very beginning, even if it was in front of their family members.

But, for the first time in Jounouchi's life, he could find nothing bad to say about someone else's life. There was nothing bad about Yuugi. The only thing he could possibly say was that, perhaps, Yuugi cared _too_ much and that, maybe, he was a little _too _selfless, a little _too _generous. Maybe even passive. But these weren't exactly _bad _traits; they were as admirable as they were foolish. It took a great deal of bravery to admit that you were wrong and it took a very strong person to care so utterly for others and care so very little for yourself. It could be considered foolish, it could be seen as idiocy, but Jounouchi saw it as brave.

Yuugi had saved him from a lot of things. And he discovered that the boy's life was not as rosy as he had forced himself to believe. In his guilt he had apologised and before he really knew what had happened he and Honda had left the gang and found themselves with an all-new group of friends who were quieter but infinitely more real than the old ones. Yuugi was the truest person and the most loyal friend you could ever want and Jounouchi found himself wondering why Yuugi had been so alone beforehand. The answer was unfortunately because of his strange appearance and his obsession with logic based games. He was withdrawn.

Then his other arrived.

Jounouchi was sat in front of the T.V. A rerun of Battle City was playing on the gaming channel and he didn't have the heart to turn it over. Even when they mentioned Yuugi's name and achievements in a passing comment and his chest stabbed with pain he couldn't find it within himself to simply stop watching even if he wasn't really listening. He supposed he was punishing himself, if he watched these things and was reminded of Yuugi then he would never forget him. He would never forget this pain and this pain would never lessen. He wouldn't allow it to lessen.

It was his fault.

If he hadn't persuaded Honda and Otogi to come with him to that club they wouldn't have gotten into a fight and they wouldn't have had to call the Motou Residence (Seto was in another country at the time and Jounouchi really hadn't wanted to tell him about their fighting) for help and then Yami wouldn't have had to have come and he wouldn't have had to leave Yuugi and then the house wouldn't have burnt down, or at least Yuugi wouldn't have been caught in the fire because Yami would have been there and this never would have happened and Yuugi would be alive and the Pharaoh wouldn't be missing and he wouldn't be here pinning for his best friend because it was all his fault!

Yuugi had helped him with so much. Serenity would have gone blind by now if Yuugi hadn't helped him in Dullest Kingdom and then gone on to win it himself, if Yuugi hadn't given Jounouchi the prize money his little sister would be blind. But she wasn't and it was because of Yuugi that she wasn't. Yuugi had even helped him with Seto. They would still be in the stages of insulting each other blindly if Yuugi hadn't blatantly told Jounouchi about the blonde's own emotions and then gone to set him and Seto up. He wouldn't be here in the Kaiba home in a relationship with someone he loved.

But what had he given Yuugi in return? An early ticket to the 'other side'.

A tear fell from his eye and he wiped them fiercely, he wasn't going to start crying again! Yuugi was gone and the Pharaoh was missing. There was no point crying over it! He wasn't going to forget and he wasn't going to get over his grief this quickly but he needed to help the others! Yuugi had taught him to be strong, not physically but emotionally, and even though this was killing him inside he needed to honour what he had learnt. Anzu was in a worse state then him and if Yuugi ever found out that Jounouchi was wallowing in his own pity and not helping her he would never be forgiven!

He had to be strong for the group. Yuugi couldn't be the emotionally strong one anymore and so the torch had to be passed to another if they were to survive this. Jounouchi could be the muscles and the brain. Right?

They had to find the Pharaoh. Only the gods knew what he must be going through now.

Jounouchi could do this couldn't he? It was his duty to salvage what was left. He was the one to scatter the pieces in the first place.

This was his entire fault.

* * *

He tied his hair back. He wore glasses that did his eyes no good. He wore his clothes baggy and cared not for their condition.

All so he wouldn't be recognised.

"Thank you, sir, and see you again."

He worked in a quiet bookstore and paid rent for a cheap apartment downtown. He walked with his shoulders hunched and made up stories of hereditary illness for a reason as to why his hands shook.

All so that he could keep on 'living'.

"No miss, I'm afraid we are out of stock."

He slept on the couch most nights so he could watch the T.V. and let it lull him to sleep. Let its dull light imprint itself on the back of his eyelids rather than the memory of icy skin. Let its multitude of voices sing him a lullaby rather than the sound of his own screams. His back hurt and his eyes burned but he continued to sleep on the couch and wear his glasses and burn his renters out by staring at a screen too late into the night.

He didn't care anymore.

"Of course, sir, I will get you the forms."

He drank every now and then and smoked on occasion but he was addicted to neither. Sometimes when it all became too much they helped until the wave passed and he returned to his state of emotionless monotony. His voice was rarely used, and it only formed words when another spoke to him and expected an answer, any other time he only heard his voice he was alone. And he was screaming, not speaking. He was quiet and withdrawn; most of his work colleagues only knew him by sight, though some by name. He worked to keep himself occupied.

He hated everything.

"The horror section? … It… It's just over there to your right."

He marked the days by whether he was working or not. They did not matter to him. He followed his own calendar, counting the months, the years, by how long it had been since that day his life ended. The days and nights blurred together and soon it became impossible to tell one from the other. The Sakura festival, New Year, and Valentine's Day all passed by him as if he were blind. He had no one to share them with; he had no one he wanted to share them with so there was no point in even acknowledging them. These 'special' days, these weeks, they passed as every other time passed. Slowly and pointlessly. His days merged together and became weeks, became months and finally became years.

Nothing ever changed anymore. He had no will to change it.

"An extra shift? No, I have nothing else planned, I may as well."

* * *

AN: Oh dear the group are going through the self-blame stage. I'm so evil. Sorry again that this update took so long but this constant angst stuff is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm much better at fluff I think. Sorry this is so short, I'm having a little trouble with ideas, I know what I _want_ to write but it's not coming out as I'd hoped. And I know where I'm going (I've even written a future chapter – about chapter five I think it will be) just not how to get there. Ah, life. Who do you think I should do next? It was going to be Anzu but then I realised that Yuugi's Grandfather has fallen through a plot hole somewhere and I should probably go and retrieve him, so I might do him. Either way this is going to pick up and quite fast if my notes have anything to say about it. Yay!

Now back to my English Literature Coursework I should have finished four hours ago.

Review Please!


	4. Chapter Three

**AN:** Sorry for the wait, I got the new Nintendo for Christmas and Twilight Princess is seriously addictive. Seriously. You know I've noticed I have a thing for using dreams in my fics, probably a few too many times as well, I'll try to cut down once I've finished 'Magic of Science'.

**Disclaimer:** Why don't you tell me.

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Three**

_Yami… _

_Warmth. There was so much of it. Not the heat that tore his flesh and made him scream but warmth. Kind gentle warmth._

_Mou Hitori No Boku…_

_A caress as light as a feather over his stinging cheeks and eyes. There was the faint sound of wing beats in his ears, as if from a huge bird, there was a gentle wind ghosting over his skin blown towards him from those wings. And it was so warm._

_Pharaoh…_

_He hated that title, why did it have to always follow him? There was a flicker behind his eyelids that shifted with the quality of a flame. He would not open his eyes. He would not see what they always showed him. He refused._

_Red. Crimson. What did it matter? It was always the same. What was the point? He didn't want to open his eyes in his dream to something he saw every time he closed his eyes when he was awake, every time he blinked. _

_He could still hear his Aibou's voice. _

_Atemu!_

_Like sweet birdsong in his ears anyone could and would have fallen for that voice, he knew he had. He felt his eyelids flutter as something drew closer, the heat increased but it was not that all consuming lustful heat of passion. It was something all together gentler. A feathery touch ghosted over his cheeks, he wanted to move away but lean into it at the same time, it was strange and alien but there was a familiarity to it that kept him craving for it. _

_Then suddenly the touch left him. Fading away as if pulled back. He felt himself stumble forwards to find it again but would not open his eyes, he could not find it, it was now too far way._

_Come home… _

Yami's eyes snapped open to the sight of his blurred grey ceiling. He was lying flat out on his back on the couch again, the sound of the television loud yet like a dull buzzing in his ears. Small, almost unnoticeable damp spots dotted the paint, he knew where every single dot was, and he knew exactly how many decorated his living room ceiling. He had had hour upon hour to contemplate them after all.

He reached up with a shaking hand to dry his cheeks, no matter how many times he dreamed, no matter how varying they were, the tears always fell. He would never get used to them. He fisted his hands and breathed deeply in his now normal morning ritual, his shaking was always the worst after a dream, and he couldn't go to work looking like a leaf in high winds. He never closed his eyes while he calmed himself, closing them would mean seeing the image that had so deeply burned its self to the back of his eye lids and thus was the reason he had to wait until exhaustion took him before he slept, it was not uncommon for Yami to go for a full week on only two hours a night, if that. He blamed his stamina on the shadow magic that still infested his soul.

Yami scowled at the grey paint above him as the trembling finally subsided to its normal suppressed shiver, there was another dot on the ceiling, just to the left of the one that looked vaguely like a raindrop, that would make number fifty-three. He needed to get this place renovated; he probably had enough money for it considering the only thing he used his wage for was to pay rent, the almost daily train journey, and the occasional meal.

He turned his head to the side expecting to see the remains of last night's alcohol consumption. And blinked. Sitting up he stared at the clean coffee table with a blank expression. He knew he didn't tidy them last night… at least he was pretty sure he hadn't…

Yami placed his fingers over his temples and groaned at the pain; headaches were always a result of trying too hard. And for once the TV really wasn't helping. Sighing heavily he staggered over to the small kitchen, proceeding to glare at the neat row of bottles. There came a very faint 'clunk' from the living room, he ignored it. He had work in an hour.

Only ten minutes later he stalked back into the living room, a foul temper already thundering over his head. He was ready for work but something huge was wrong. Something so huge he was about to rip the apartment to shreds to find it.

Yuugi's scarf wasn't on his pillow.

It wasn't in pride of place, folded neatly on the cream coloured bed sheets in his bedroom where it should be. Where it should always be. It wasn't on the couch where he sometimes brought it when he was feeling particularly nostalgic. It wasn't anywhere!

Yami gritted his teeth and griped the back of a wooden chair so his nails made groves and his knuckles turned white. He wanted to scream and tare and rip the very air apart until the world came to him just to give him this one need, like they would have done all that time ago. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the silence before the shadows in his soul decided to do something drastic. It had to be around here somewhere.

Wait. Silence?

Yami looked up at the now black screen of the TV. Why was it off? Had it broken? No it wasn't broken, he could still see the little red standby light flashing on and off. He shook his head to clear it. He must have done it subconsciously before he left the room. And where was his coat? He had used it as a blanket last night but now it was nowhere to be found. This was beginning to take the piss.

In sudden inspiration Yami glanced towards the door, half expecting to see it, and the scarf, hung neatly on the coat hanger.

He chocked.

Both. Exactly as he assumed.

Stepping over to them Yami took the faded lilac scarf into his hands, as if expecting it to implode on contact, and ran his fingers over the soft cotton. It was the only thing he had left of Yuugi, snatched up on a whim before he left to 'rescue' Jounouchi. It still had Yuugi's smell. He played with the idea of taking it with him to work today, but frowned and decided against it almost immediately, it was too valuable for that.

Snatching up his bag he laid the scarf gently over the hook and left the apartment with just enough time to run to the station. He left his coat under it so the hook wouldn't leave a mark in the fabric.

It was far too valuable for that.

* * *

Sugoroku was a thinking man.

Having travelled the world he had seen an awful lot and experienced more then most ever would. He had been part of excavations in Egypt, helped discover the lost pharaoh's tomb, the last one to be found in the Valley of the Kings, he had solved ancient riddles and broken even older curses. He had found the puzzle that had hung so proudly around his grandson's neck and had been part of a discovery that if taken seriously would change the world.

He had lived through the deaths of his wife, his daughter and son-in-law and many other friends besides. But he had not been ready for this. They say that death prepares you for anything, but death in itself… you cannot prepare for that. He would have thought that after everything he had seen and experienced he could recover from anything.

But this…

Sugoroku stood over the ruins of his home and livelihood, leaning over his cane with the air of a destroyed man. The shop and house above it had caved in completely, Yuugi's room and a rickety flight of stairs the only things left standing besides from the blackened walls. Yuugi was the only blood relative he had left and now with him gone…

How was he supposed to recover from this?

A single overnight hospital stay had resulted in the end of so many lives. Was this his fault? Sugoroku liked to think of himself as a reasonable level-headed man, someone you could go to with the strangest of reasons and not fear being laughed at. But Yuugi was gone and Yami had left him too, he had seen precious little of the group since the fire. No one had come to him, although they had checked on his health (mostly Anzu) for Yuugi's sake.

There was a great gap in his chest where his grandson used to be, the cheerful youth replaced by brooding sorrow.

By regrets.

He had cried enough recently to fill a bath ten times over, but never in front of anyone. Sugoroku was as proud as he was stubborn. And he knew that wherever Yuugi was now he was not suffering.

But he also knew that Yuugi had not left.

He was not one for silly clichés, the ones that tell people that you're loved ones are never really gone because they live on in your heart, Sugoroku was a realistic man, when someone died they were gone. Full stop. It was rare if a soul stayed behind and only if there was a severe reason. But Yuugi was not gone. Yuugi had not left. He had spent enough of his time in ruins and tombs to know when there was unrest in the air. To know when there was something leftover from life. He had stood for hours in that house, surrounded by black walls and the half-collapsed ceiling, and he had felt the same thing there as he had in the pharaoh's tomb.

Perhaps it was only a remnant, a trace mark of life burned by tragedy into its surroundings, but the fact remained that Yuugi had not left entirely. Even if it was only a part of him, that part was still here in this house. Sugoroku could not live with it but the fact remained that he could not get rid of it.

The pull was too strong.

Yuugi had always possessed a strong heart.

He was living now with the professor and his granddaughter; it was… a different experience. They gave him his space while he grieved and Rebecca had taken it as quite a hit, she had, apparently, based a large part of her future around his grandson. She had put the card Yuugi had given her, Soul Release he thought it was called, in an air tight display cabinet, as if afraid it would spontaneously combust, no one tried to dissuade her from this logic.

The land still belonged to him and though he no longer lived there and planned not to do anything with the building, he was going to keep it that way, if this was the only way of protecting the last remnants of Yuugi's wishes then he would keep this land the same forever. Rebecca had already agreed to take ownership of it after he passed away himself. Sugoroku would help Yuugi complete this last wish if it was the last thing he did, if it took another three lifetimes he would do it. He didn't know what the fragment of the child's spirit wanted, or what it was doing, but he trusted Yuugi and he would help him.

That way they could all recover.

* * *

_Oh, dear Yami…_

The cash register zinged closed for the last time that day and Yami set about gathering his belongings as the others around him finished tidying the shelves. A warm wind brushed over him the moment he stepped outside so that the ex-pharaoh blinked, bemused, wasn't it winter? He dismissed it with a sharp shake of his head and set off towards the station. The clouds above the city groaned heavy with rain, Yami only hoped they would hold out until he got home, or at least until he was under the cover of a trains carriage.

_At long last…_

It would appear he was not that lucky because the instant he stepped off his transport, having been pushed and squashed all the way to his stop, a large drop of cold water hit the back of his hand and dripped uncomfortably down his fingers. He sighed and brought his hand up to where he could see the palm and watched, as the rain around him grew increasingly heavier, hitting his palm and numbing his skin like ice. The crowds around him ran past in their hurry to get out of the rain, umbrellas and coats appearing from nowhere and flowering like harshly coloured petals in the misty grey rain. He had no coat and he didn't even own an umbrella, sometimes Yami enjoyed the rain, but today he would have preferred it to pass him by.

He stood and watched for what felt like a long time until a particularly large shoulder purposefully wedged into his own, pitching him forwards and, in his unprepared state, causing a nasty fall to the concrete floor. Yami gritted his teeth as the shock waves reverberated painfully up his arms and his skin caught nastily on the rough floor. A group of old women stopped to help him as he picked himself up, cooing sympathetically and blaming a brash looking young man for his fall. Yami really couldn't care less. The stinging grazes on his palms had seemed to warm them from their numbness. He thanked the women for their help with his mechanically unused voice and re-slung his threadbare bag over his shoulder, heading out into the rain.

… _I have finally…_

He closed the door to his apartment with a sharp snap and shrugged off his sopping wet jacket, discarding it on the radiator and not caring to stoop and pick it up after it fell off again, hitting the poor quality carpet with a quiet squelch. His hair was sticking to his cheeks and the back of his neck and so after a quick change of clothes he slumped down on the sofa with a thin towel and roughly scrubbed at his hair. Yami sighed, having got as much water out as he deemed possible and threw his glasses on the coffee table, feeling his eyes adjust to the world no longer being blurred and fuzzy. He supposed he should buy a pair of glasses that didn't damage his eyes. The apartment was painfully empty without any music on; he wished there was someone real here to see, to hear. But he knew if it were anyone other than those select few humans he had run from, or the one that was taken from him, he would wish them gone again. The blank screen of the TV stared back at him from the other side of the small living room and for once he really didn't feel like turning it on. Now he was in the silence of his room he thought he could hear something else. Something soft and inviting, like moonlight that had the suns warmth.

…_finally found you._

* * *

**AN: **hmmm. A little slower then I would have liked, I was planning on doing Anzu too but it turns out she doesn't like me and Sugoroku took long enough that you very much. Forgive the shortness, College starts again tomorrow and I wanted something up before then.

Exams in two weeks. Those lovely lovely A Levels that determine which University I get into. Lovely. Haven't revised yet. Lovely. I'm going to fail. Lovely.

...Crap.

Review please:next chap- strange occurrences get stranger, Anzu makes a possible appearance (maybe), and ooo what's this? Yami in Domino?


	5. Chapter Four

AN: I was half asleep in the bath the other night wondering what the hell I could do with this chapter to get to the point afterwards that I've already written and it wasn't until I nearly drowned myself that I had a brain wave. Near death experiences do that sometimes… (Note to readers: accidentally falling asleep in a tub of water is not good for the health). You know I've noticed that every time I work on this I'm listening to 'You know My Name' (y'know off the new bond film)… hmm… maybe that's symbolic… or maybe it's a pile of crap… I shall debate this with the voice in my head.

And so the greatly awaited moment (or not) is finally here: I give you Anzu!

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Four**

She couldn't remember the last time she had looked through these boxes. Judging by the almost centimetre thick layer of dust over the surfaces she hadn't been here for at least a year.

And now all she wanted to do was seal them back up and run far away before the tears came again.

It had been four years now. Four years since the fight, four years since the fire, and four years since their lives changed for the worse. Anzu sighed heavily. Perhaps… perhaps it wouldn't be that bad? Perhaps she could manage it now. Perhaps she could manage to look back without regressing into the state Jounouchi had only just managed to pull her out of. Perhaps she could finally honour Yuugi by remembering him.

The attic was filthy. She was only up here because her cousin had asked if she still had that rocking horse to give to her new-born. Anzu hadn't found the rocking horse. But she had found everything else she had tried to lose.

With a steely determination she ripped away the parcel tape from the unmarked box, the top layer of cardboard peeling away with the force of her ferocity, and threw open the lid. Her fingers trembled a little as they ghosted over the leather bound photo album lying on top of various other bits and pieces of her past.

Slowly, with a caution that should have been used for an unstable explosive rather than an innocent book of photographs, she curled her fingers around the spine and lifted it from its cardboard cage. Kneeling down Anzu rested the book on her lap.

And proceeded to stare at it.

How on earth did one leather bound book of memories manage to look so ominous? The mock gold clasps around the corners glittered in the light of the single naked bulb. Anzu laughed a little, since when had she become so suppositious?

Taking a deep breath (_she could do this, she _could) she peeled open the cover, a quiet plastic ripping echoed around the wooden beams, the pages stuck together from ages of neglect, as the first page was revealed. Her breath caught. It was a single picture, displayed landscape on the yellowy page, one of all of them together just before Dullest Kingdom. She was stood to the left of Honda, the two of them laughing at Jounouchi, his arm confining Yuugi in a playful headlock, a silly grin on his face as he ruffled the wild hair into an even less tameable state.

The picture had been taken by surprise, Miho with her new camera taking photos of everything and anything.

The next one was worse. Just her and Yuugi, sat under the sakura trees growing in the school gardens with their bentos. She had just offered Yuugi a bite of her own lunch and he had his mouth open to receive it, she had been smiling at the obvious flirt, the newly completed Puzzle resting easily around his neck. Anzu stared at the image of the Puzzle for a moment, another stab of guilt touching her heart, they had always talked of being so close, that they would always be there for each other, and yet when the time came that the Pharaoh really needed them (because really the only one he had realistically needed even in the memory world was Yuugi) they had failed. All of them had failed.

Anzu continued flicking through the pages, the watery pressure behind her eyes becoming greater by the minute, some were of individuals and some didn't even have Yuugi in but there was one thing she noticed, even on the photograph where Yuugi had supposedly stood alone, halfway through turning in surprise at hearing his name called, his smile radiant in the sunset on the beach behind him, he was not alone. Just behind him in his shadow, there was always a faint, darker impression of someone behind him. Anzu knew it instantly to be the Pharaoh and wondered with shock why she had never noticed the impression before. Another stab of guilt, Yami had always been there with her friend, even when Yuugi didn't know it his other had been watching him, caring for him, she wondered again what it would feel like to have your world suddenly emptied of its meaning.

Anzu moved on, now noticing the shadowy presence behind Yuugi was a constant. Until she reached one about halfway through. It wasn't anything special for a picture, the angle was wonky and the focus was off, but it made her want to cry. Taken during summer break, between Battle City and the Doma saga, Jounouchi and Honda stood at the front holding up mock peace signs, and surprisingly Ryou with a digital camcorder in his hands, vaguely Anzu remembered a school project to do with that. She had taken the photo without realising Yuugi was in it. He was stood in the background; his head tilted up to the treetops and the sky, there was a small contented smile on his face. The dark impression was pressed even closer than usual to him and Anzu had no doubt the two of them were talking. She had her suspicions that there had been a relationship between them way before the memory world. Did this prove it?

Anzu glanced back into the box, catching sight of a thin black DVD case. There was no writing on the side so closing the album she lifted it out of the cardboard and popped opened the hard plastic. On the silver disk was written in a hasty scrawl 'Summer project. Park life.' She 'ohhed' in remembrance, this was why Ryou had been holding that camcorder in the photo.

Smiling softly she dropped both the album and the DVD into the box and hefted the whole thing into her arms, making her wobbly way down the ladder and into the deserted living room. Pulling out the disk Anzu placed it into the player and turned on the TV, perhaps she would be able to see the Pharaoh on this too. Perhaps watching this would make her feel less guilty? Anything could happen after all.

* * *

Jounouchi growled at the phone as it interrupted his late morning sleep, detaching himself from the bed sheets he groped blindly over the bedside table until his hand made contact with the source of his annoyance. Glancing blearily at the screen he vaguely recognised Anzu's number and put the phone to his ear.

"What?"

"J-Jounouchi…"

He frowned at the shaky tone of Anzu's voice. "What's up?"

A long pause during which he grew increasingly worried and then: "You need to see this."

* * *

It was official: he hated books. Page after page after goddamn yellow white cream page! Words black, blank, unfeeling, unemotional; the machines that published them heartless and cold, unable to convey through uniform letters the emotion the author poured into them. Bound in hard spines, flimsy paper, and glossy slimy plastic. The same, all the same. Day after day, page after page, book after book. Empty face and vacant eyes of the public; staring at him as if they knew. As if they knew him, what he'd done. What he'd become. What he'd let slip through his fingers. What he'd killed.

He wanted them to vanish in the roaring flames that scorched his nightmares. He wanted them to scream and writhe and for an instant understand what it was like to be him, understand why he wanted to burn them in a funeral pyre made of those goddamn books!

But Yami still smiled that mechanical smile and handled the books with the care of an employee and carried on as if nothing had changed. Because it never would. Only the slow deterioration of his mind would change. The faces never did, they all had places to be, people to see, futures to find, pasts to reminisce. He knew he was going mad. He had gotten to work that morning to find a lunch he knew he hadn't made and the scarf he knew he'd left on the bed, in his bag. Last week he came home to find thirty missed calls on his answering machine but not one message, and no one ever called him. The other day when he thought he might take up smoking again to see if it helped he left the new pack in the kitchen and came back ten minutes later to find them torn from their wrappings and drowning in a sink overflowing with water; cold water flooding the tiled floor until it looked like a makeshift pond and he was forced to stare at his blurred pale reflection in the freezing mirror all night while he mopped it up. The gaunt grey reflection distorted by uneasy ripples that grew into small waves and lapped at his feet and the walls. The tap still dripped, drove him mad at night. He knew he must be going mad. Doing these things without any memory of them, or letting the shadows loose without realising. He dismissed the little voice that said the shadows would never make a packed lunch for him to take to work; it was too good an excuse for insanity.

The clock chimed, end of the day.

The clouds looked superimposed on the twilight sky, looked as if the painter that had painted the heavens had decided last minute that the sky looked too bland but chose the wrong colour when adding the clouds. It looked fake to him. The train was packed, nothing new. His apartment was cold, nothing new. His answer machine buzzed and flashed its little red light at him; he had messages.

Yami blinked, letting his bag fall off his shoulder and into his open hand, where he promptly dropped it on the entrance mat, pulling off his shoes and moving over to stare at the table where the phone sat. A message was new. Shaking his head to clear it of the tired fuzz, he deposited his glasses on the table and pressed the flashing button to play the message. It was probably just his bank agency or something equally as stupid.

"You have _one_ message." The cheery sound of the woman's false robotic voice sounded out of place in his apartment.

Static. Just static.

Yami frowned, confused. Minutes and minutes of plain white noise. Why the hell would someone send him that? A prank call? Then he picked up the faint sound of crackling underneath the noise, similar to crumpled paper, or dying embers. He drew in a breath, a little unnerved by the sound, it echoed louder in his ears, drowning out his heartbeat and pulling at his nerves. His hands fisted until the nails turned white, the sound affecting his temper so it flared; how dare it remind him of his nightmares! With a shout and a crash the machine broke apart against the wall, the static and its crackling undertone stopping dead, though the memory of it still whispered to his mind, the pieces clattered down onto each other on the carpet, held together by the flimsy remains of brightly coloured plastic coated copper, thin wires like veins. Yami lowered his arm, breathing deeply, and turned into the kitchen to see if there was any sake left.

That night he stumbled half drunk to his bed to find to his dismay that the wind had picked up and had found a way to force itself through the cracked seal of the window and eddy about his room like some awful mischievous child, laughing at him as he dreamt and playing with the strands of his limp hair with the twisted affection of a dead lover.

* * *

"Anzu…" Jounouchi began, falling back against the armrest of the chair in barley-concealed shock. Disbelief fighting a visible war with something that resembled hope in his eyes. "This can't… it can't…"

Anzu stopped the disk, letting the empty screen display 'Panasonic DVD' in deep blue across the glass. She held her hands together on her lap in what could have been interpreted as prayer but was rather just an attempt to keep her hands steady. She looked over to him, her eyes overly glossy after seeing it for the second time. "What else could it… we've seen – experienced stranger…"

Jounouchi shook his head frantically, "Not this Anzu, not this! You can't – we can't – _I_ _can't_…" he took a few deep breaths, "Suppose… suppose we think about this… tell the others… what would you – we do then?"

She bit her lip, a tear leaving a pale streak across her cheek, "I don't know. But…" here she shifted uneasily, "We have to find the Pharaoh."

Jounouchi let his head fall into his hands, "Play it again."

* * *

Yami found himself staring at a computer screen in an Internet café without remembering how he had gotten there. It was a Wednesday afternoon, the day when the bookshop closed early, and walking from the back employee's door he remembered a vague notion that he wanted a decent cup of coffee for once, that notion leading on to where he could get a decent cup of coffee and thus find something other to do then stare at the remnants of his answering machine in his steadily becoming weirder apartment. He found himself here looking at the prices of a train ticket to a city he hadn't thought of for months with a warm porcelain cup of Espresso cupped in his hands in a café he had never been in but was known for its western style.

Yami drank deeply, ignoring the scaling heat on his tongue. Placed the half-empty cup back down onto its saucer. He wanted to click off the page that proclaimed 'Domino Station. One way.' In bright red letters, as if written as a warning rather than a persuasion to spend money, but found that his fingers didn't want to work. All at once a grieving guilt filled him, fighting past the emotional wall he had built around himself; he hadn't even visited Yuugi's grave since the funeral. He had refused to go near the city, going so far as to move all the way from the main island, Honshu, to Kyushu, the southernmost island. He hadn't even had the decency to visit his hikari's resting place. He felt suddenly disgusted with himself.

With sudden resolve and determination he moved the mouse over the 'Confirm Reservation of Ticket' button, and clicked. Reserving a seat on the _Shinkansen_ – Bullet Train – for the next day. He'd have to pick it up properly at the ticket office beforehand but… as long as he didn't think about it – as long as he did it fast enough not to be able to think about it – then he could do it.

Tomorrow.

He'd call in sick at work.

* * *

_It was hard for them he knew. But they would have to manage it. They would have to help. How could they not? They were his friends. He hoped he didn't hurt them, frighten them, and force them to turn away. But had no choice and now it was all or nothing, losing or winning. He hoped they would figure this out. He hoped they could understand._

_His yami _must_ understand._

_His yami _always_ understood. _

_And if not then he would consume them all._

_His eternity would _not_ be spent alone. He wouldn't allow it._

_

* * *

_

AN: These chapter lengths are as annoying to me as they are to you. This fic is driving me crazy, I can't seem to find decent stopping places for the chapters. I was going to actually HAVE Yami IN Domino by now but... he's not... it would have messed the whole thing up if he was 'coz then that goes straight into... oopps nearly gave it away then -laughs-. Just so you know though, this isn't going to be an angel fic, well not really, not at all, well the general gist it is pretty clear (I think) so... yeah, I'll stop rambling now.

The next chapter is already a quarter written and the chapter after that is finished, and that is when it really gets strange. Yeah I have wired methods of writing, I know, but it works, most of the time, I write extracts and then expand on them, hence, weirdness sometimes happens.

Please Review!


	6. Chapter Five

**AN: **I really think I should change the title of this story, as it has once again changed direction and now has absolutely nothing to do with phoenixes. Phoenixes as a representation of fire maybe and Ashes certainly belongs but on the whole I think I should probably just call it 'Ashes'. Hmmmm...

Important: Okay I just want to point out that this is not meant to be totally accurate where Japanese culture is concerned. The religion aspect especially has been twisted for my own convenience. Also, I am not a religious person so don't see this as some kind of busied view or something – I don't know just don't go shouting at me for things that are meant to be there.

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Five**

He hated trains. All those damned people pushing and shoving their way through the carriages. He had never been good with people and claustrophobic didn't even come close to describing what he felt like on the bullet train that morning. He had always known he hated trains but they had just managed to hit the list of things he despised.

Yami gritted his teeth as yet another passenger pressed him against the pole he was gripping for balance on their way to a reserved seat. As if he needed anything else to send him over the edge today. Domino City got closer and closer each passing moment; Yami could hear the second hands of the numerous watches ticking in his ears like tiny pendulums. Like slow and steady water torture.

He hadn't gotten the day off work. He had managed to get a week off instead. He had never taken holidays before, he had never been off sick before, and so his employer was understandably ready to believe he had a bad bought of the flu and needed to stay off for a while.

That was the only part that had been easy.

He had forced himself to collect his reserved ticket, ignoring the nausea churning up a storm in his stomach. Getting on the train had been one of the hardest things he had ever done, his mind continuously reminding him of exactly why he had run from the city. Because he couldn't stand the sight of the place that had been both his heaven with Yuugi and his hell without. But a stronger force had pushed him through those sliding doors amidst the throngs of people; a force he wasn't entirely sure was his own strength of will and duty. Perhaps the shadows desired to return as well? Perhaps they were the strange invisible little tugging fingers on his jacket?

The train slid to a stop and with a jolt of panic and nerves Yami realised just where he was. The end of his journey. Domino City.

He growled at the people in his way when they didn't move fast enough. If he didn't get off now than he wouldn't get off at all, he'd lose his nerve and stand stock still without any clue what to do. He was moving on blind instinct now, moving forward only into the next instant of time, not thinking of even a second before it just in case his thinking caused some kind of mental break down. He didn't have a clue what he was going to do. Not really. He was letting things happen as they did and only moving with it. He didn't have the strength of will any more to change his own future. He no longer knew what he wanted to work towards. Was there anything to work towards? What was left of his life, really?

He found himself, suddenly, stood outside. In a little side street just off from the station entry, staring up at the dismal sky with a kind of blank confusion. What did he have left to fight for? He had regained his memories, he had his past un-finished scores settled, he had no more fear of the shadows being let loose. The only thing that had been left was Yuugi. To carve out a little niche in life for him and Yuugi was all he had wanted; to keep his Aibou safe and happy for the rest of his life. It wouldn't even have mattered if Yuugi didn't love him back, he would have continued to protect him and love him just the same.

But that, apparently, had been too much to ask.

Chuckling bitterly to himself he dropped his gaze from the afternoon sun and onto the grey pavement at his feet. Thinking certainly had been a bad idea. But what to do now? He wasn't ready to go back to the cemetery yet. He didn't know when he would be, in four years he hadn't come close to being ready, and he doubted that just because he was so close he would be able to swallow back his self-pity and loathing with a simple deep breath. A strange fear he couldn't understand that had built up without his notice bubbled just under the surface at the thought of visiting his Aibou's grave.

There was something deep inside that had become terrified of it. Of what it meant.

He spent the whole day, instead, wandering around the city streets. Trying not to take notice of the things that jolted his memories. Trying to avoid the areas he had fought in during Battle City. Ignore the arcades and fast food diners that had been their favoured hangouts when they were all younger. He had thought he would have been able to handle this better, after four years he would have thought that it would have been bearable. But the memories and emotions that had become dull and faint during his time away were returning with a vivid and brutal clarity at the sight of the city he had spent so much time in. It was a good thing he had run, he mused silently, he would never have survived such raw reminders of what he'd lost.

Otogi's huge; ever-expanding game store loomed above him. The multitude of screens displaying various individual advertisements for the games the store sold and live previews of duels flashed their colours before him. When was the last time he duelled? He had played numerous times after the ceremonial battle, won a fair amount of money through tournaments to help with Yuugi's university funds, but not for a very long while had he taken it seriously. Not since Yuugi's death had he even considered playing. He couldn't even remember his last victory.

Yami sighed heavily. Not that he was considering playing now, but it would have been nice to watch a match. No one recognised him these days, not with the way he dressed and pulled his hair back. If someone _did_ notice something of a resemblance they just passed him off as a fan. The famous, unbeatable game king had been missing in action for years, everyone assumed he'd left the country to lay low and live the rest of his life in relative peace. Well that was almost true. It wasn't exactly much of a life was it? Nor had he left the country, it had taken him long enough to adjust to Japan when he'd rejected the afterlife, for him to even consider learning a third language and culture.

Yami turned from the grand entrance to look up at the mountains rising in the distance, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight. The cemetery was situated on the rise, where no one could realistically build anything else, it wasn't anything huge but he could see the uniform pattern of the trees and paths even from here now that the day had cleared up of clouds. He should go now before it was too late. He didn't fancy visiting a graveyard at night despite the fact that he had once been a spirit himself.

A sudden gust of warm wind blew up from behind him, lifting his coat tails as if tugging on them. Yami set his face into a determined scowl; he had gotten this far without a breakdown, he could make it to the end without one too.

Other than the predictable growth of the trees there was very little difference in the graveyard from what he remembered. There were new stones and memorials to be sure and the older ones had become worn with time and the eroding weather but on the whole the cemetery remained the same.

Bypassing the shrine Yami made his way through the cold reminders of life, weaving in and out of the smaller shrines and following the well-worn path towards the incline he remembered by heart. Ignoring the urges to turn back on himself and go back to where he'd come from. Yuugi deserved at least this. He deserved at least for Yami to visit the place he'd been put to rest.

Yami finally reached the old oak tree with a thick cold wall protecting his heart, using sheer force of will to keep an emotional breakdown at bay. It was both worse and better then he'd thought. He honestly hadn't known what he had expected to happen when he got here. Part of him had believed something huge and life changing would appear before him. That he'd either breakdown completely again like he had after the funeral or that some big revelation would clear his mind and lift his heart so he could pick himself up and carry on with life as if he didn't have that huge torn scar down his soul where Yuugi had once been connected to him. But it was surprisingly… disappointing. The Japanese oak leaned a little more to the left then before, its branches were a little more gnarled and twisted under the leaves. The white marble stone was a deeper grey now, soft green moss clinging to the base and sides, the words engraved into it not quite as pronounced or sharp as he remembered. The ashes that had been Yuugi's remains had long since returned to the earth or been blown away by the winds. It was all strangely innocent. He found he didn't need to worry about any kind of breakdown. In fact he felt strangely relieved for a reason that was beyond him.

The warm wind that had been blowing persistently from behind him since he set off from Otogi's shop finally died down to a barely felt breeze as he walked forward to kneel on the damp ground before the gravestone. Tracing Yuugi's name with his fingers with a bitterly sad mile crossing his lips, for the first time in a long time his hands did not shake, he couldn't help but laugh slightly.

"I don't know why I feared coming here." He spoke to the air, as if Yuugi could hear him, "I've been such an idiot, Aibou. Unable to muster even the strength to buy a train ticket. If you could see me I know you would be disappointed, I haven't become who you always said I could. I'm not as strong as you believed. There's nothing but emptiness now, Aibou, without you there. Nothing but silence and nightmares."

He sighed out a laugh, dropping his gaze from the name to the moss covered base. He felt calm, and that wasn't what he had expected, a strange calmness had descended over his frayed nerves. Allowing him to breathe again after a long period of suffocating. Blinking away tears he noticed an irregular lump the moss was steadily blanketing over. He could see glimpses of clear glass through the gaps in its growth.

Yami blinked as he remembered the glass rose he'd placed here before he left. Pulling away the moss he picked the rose up from its bed of dirt and stone, using his sleeve to clean it as best he could. It was a little tarnished and duller from when it was new, the rain and nature obviously having peeled away the layer of varnish that gave it its sheen. It was cold in his fingers as the frozen petals and thorns glinted in the late afternoon sun.

"I wonder if the others have been to visit." He asked the air, wondering about the fate of Yuugi's friends for the first time in a long time.

Twirling the rose by its stem he shifted so he could lean his shoulder against the stone, not caring about the cold water seeping into his clothes from last night's rain sodden grass.

"I am sure you have helped them move on already." Yami smiled, thinking back to his request that Yuugi's spirit guide them out of their grief. "How is heaven treating you?" he continued talking again as if Yuugi was listening, "I am sure your wings outshine Ra, little angel, and that all the gods are jealous of your beauty and purity."

He leant his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes to block out the pale blue sky. Feeling as if he'd been waiting for this moment of clarity for years.

"Perhaps one day," he muttered with a yawn, unable to remember the last time he felt this relaxed, "when my life finally ends, they will let me see you again. If for only a moment before they place my spirit where it belongs. I would never be pure enough to stay with you. My angel."

He drifted in and out of sleep for a while. Strangely comforted by knowing where he was. Too comforted really, considering the awkward position. He wasn't sure how long he remained in that state, just feeling the undercurrents of his unconscious trying to pull him down only for his conscious mind to bring him back up into a vague awareness, but when his closed lids were suddenly hit with too much heat and light, enough for the backs of his eyelids to turn red and hot, he realised that he couldn't stay here all night.

With a pained groan of protest Yami finally gave up sleep and cracked open an eye to the full glare of the setting sun. It hadn't really been sleep anyway, just a pleasant doze. The first thing he noticed was how uncomfortable it was leaning against a gravestone, his neck cricked painfully to one side. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust properly, looking down at the city and the ocean in the far distance. The sun was touching the horizon, setting it alight with reds and oranges, pinks and purples. Dancing over the gentle waves until the light reached land, bathing the city skyscrapers in a beautiful golden glow and melting the sky overhead into a steely blue grey.

How long had he been dozing? No longer than half an hour surely. He felt… strangely warm. And he wasn't sure if it was because of the sunlight or not. The glass rose was still cool in his fingers, although his body heat had warmed it substantially. And there was a soft, slight weight leaning onto his side that radiated heat.

Yami blinked slowly, still not entirely awake, and shifted slightly in confusion before glancing downwards to his right. It felt like someone was curled into his side.

He froze.

Everything stopped. His breathing, his mind, even his heart felt like it had stopped beating. The world around him faded away until he wouldn't have noticed even if the mountain he rested on suddenly became a volcano and erupted, or if the sun actually did crash into the sea instead of vanishing behind the horizon. Someone _was_ leaning on him. Some small, wild haired, pale skinned someone.

Yami's mind flew into a panicked, furious denial. That _wasn't _Yuugi. Yuugi _wasn't_ curled up into his side with his hand resting delicately on Yami's abdomen. Yuugi was _not_ resting his head on Yami's chest with his eyes closed and breathing in the slow, relaxed rhythm of calm sleep. He _wasn't_!

The person leaning on him that was not Yuugi was smiling slightly with plump pink lips, shifting slightly so his light weight rested more firmly onto Yami. Slim fingers tugging at his shirt in his sleep. The not Yuugi's body was pale, but not deathly so, and he was completely translucent. You could see through the hair to the grass below and the creases in Yami's shirt from under where the other had nestled his head, as if he was not quite close enough. A ghost? A restless spirit trying to trick him into thinking it was seeing his Aibou by taking Yuugi's shape?

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, frozen in both body and mind, but it could not have been for very long because the sun was in exactly the same position when Yami heard something.

"Pharaoh?"

Yami jolted up, his eyes snapping up to the glare of the sun. He hissed at the pain of his watering eyes before seeing who it was that had shouted. Two figures were running up the path towards him, two very familiar yet grown up figures.

Anzu's hair was longer then he remembered, brushing against her shoulders as she reached him. Her body had grown into a proud feminine shape; not the young woman from before still getting used to adulthood, but a real independent woman who knew where she was in the world. The same could be said for the other person. Jounouchi was a grown man now, his hair was still as unruly, his eyes still feisty and alight, but his features had become less like those of an adolescent and more those of an adult comfortable with himself. Yami would have laughed at the thought of Jounouchi being a responsible adult a few years ago, yet the proof was before him. Stood staring down at him.

They glanced at each other for a moment, Jounouchi opening his mouth to say something before Yami suddenly gasped, his gaze flying to his side where the image of Yuugi had been.

There was nothing there.

"Ph-Yami?" Anzu's hesitant voice made him jump to his feet to stare at the place he had seen the ghost.

He glanced wildly at them, "Did you see him?"

Jounouchi frowned, "See who?"

"Yuugi!" he shouted, "Or – or someone who looked like Yuugi. He was right there. Sleeping. Leaning on me!"

The two exchanged glances that he _knew_ meant more than just the simple 'he's gone crazy' sympathy. Jounouchi spoke, "There was nothing there, Yami, are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! I'm not… seeing things." He was beginning to doubt himself now, he'd had his suspicions for a long time that he was going a little insane, recent events over the past few months had proved that, what if he really had just been influenced by his overwhelming desire to see Yuugi again?

There was a small bouquet of lilies in Anzu's arms he noticed suddenly, he turned his glare to it, unsure what to think.

"We've been trying to find you." She said at last, "We didn't know where you'd gone and we were going to just leave you alone since that's what you seemed to want but recently…" she paused for a moment, then gestured to the flowers, "We came to see Yuugi since it's been a while since we last visited him, and we needed to ask his spirit if… if he knew where you were."

Not that any of them expected a reply from Yuugi; they had obviously only come to pray for him. With a strange numbness he watched as Anzu stepped up to the gravestone to lay the flowers where he had once again left the rose, Jounouchi following her in a quick prayer to honour their friend. He turned away when they turned back to him.

"I'm only visiting!" He snapped, unused to such conversations these days, "And I saw something! Believe me or not."

"That's why we wanted to find you." Jounouchi spoke slowly, as if reluctant, "There's something you need to see."

* * *

News of his return had apparently spread fast through the circle of Yuugi's friends. By the time the three of them reached Anzu's house Ryou and Malik were already stood there waiting for them. The reunion was awkward, he spoke very little to any of them; he resented the two hosts and their spirits enough as it was. Bakura and Mariku had stayed wisely away though, so he only had to bare the sight of the hikaris that weren't his own. He knew he looked worn and tired, the years of loneliness and self neglect reflected in his eyes, but he also knew that none of them had expected him to look any better than that. It didn't really matter either way, it wasn't like their opinions influenced him, very little influenced him these days.

It was surprisingly easy to just block out their tense conversation as he watched Anzu fuss with a silver disk while kneeling before her television. He didn't really take notice of any of Jounouchi's comments directed towards him, he understood that this was supposed to be something big they were showing him and he needed to try and not freak out. Freak out? Did they even remember who they were talking to? What was this supposed to be anyway? They hadn't told him. Did they really think that anything they did or showed him would make a difference to the problem that was his life?

When the DVD was finally started Yami glared at the screen of Anzu's television for a good few minutes, watching the recorded images with a reluctant fascination. He couldn't look away from the sight of his young hikari but he couldn't bare the pain ripping at his chest with a rawness he had forgotten.

"And what is this supposed to be, apart from an attempt to make my grief worse?" Yami growled. But his next words suddenly dried up in his throat when he glanced back at the screen.

There was a second Yuugi there!

No, it wasn't himself when they still shared a body. It was definitely Yuugi. But it wasn't a duplicate of the younger Yuugi from the original video either. It was a second, older one, stood _over_ the image of the first. As if someone had taken a translucent picture, vaguely similar to stained glass, and stuck it over the screen. They could still see the Yuugi underneath; the second one was like a ghost, just stood with its image overlaying the first. Stood perfectly still, as if frozen in time by the remote's pause button, facing sideways and looking up at the blooming sakura trees with a painfully blank expression. The images underneath played normally, the sound was no different and the quality was just the same. But the strangely see-through image remained there.

"What is this?" Yami hissed dangerously. If this was some kind of prank then blood would be spilt all over Anzu's mother's brand new carpet!

"W-we don't know." Anzu replied. "It wasn't like this when we first filmed it. This just happened the other day."

"We can't figure out if it's just something wrong with the DVD or… or not. He doesn't do anything. Just stands there perfectly still like this until the recording runs out." Jounouchi spoke in a strangely quiet voice.

Yami turned back to the screen again. Unsure what to do, what to think, or even feel about this anymore. He just… he stood there? But why?

His next thought was utterly destroyed by what he noticed when he looked closer at the second Yuugi's face. It was clearly very wet. And there was something moving there. Tears. The superimposed image of Yuugi was crying despite the emotionless look to his face. Yami felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest, surely that ruled out a malfunction in the disk? But then… but then what – ?

"Shit!" Jounouchi suddenly exclaimed, his grip tightening around the edge of his seat. Ryou and Anzu gasped loudly, Anzu bringing her hands up to cover her mouth as Malik joined Jounouchi in cursing.

The image was doing something Anzu and Jounouchi had claimed impossible. It was moving. Not very much and so strangely sudden they hadn't noticed. But one moment it had been staring up at the trees, the next it had turned its head to face them. Yami's heart felt like it had literally stopped in his chest, suddenly finding his gaze locked with a faint image of his dead hikari. The tears were still streaming from the second Yuugi's eyes but everything about him besides that was expressionless. His eyes, once so filled with light, were dull. Empty but with an almost angry look about them, if you were looking for it.

Everything was silent for an instant that lasted for an eternity as Yami tried to understand what was going on. But then, just like flicking on a light switch, there was a loud roaring of fire and suddenly, as if someone had tapped the screen from the inside with a small hammer, a great crack appeared over the glass. The entire surface of the TV screen flared with red and orange fire and Yami's ears were suddenly assaulted by a hot air that whispered, "Come home", before both it and the fire vanished, leaving a black and broken screen behind and a gently smoking DVD player.

* * *

He couldn't sleep that night. What had happened, what he had seen, replaying over and over again in his head. Anzu had given him their spare room to stay for the night since he had forgotten to bring any money for a hotel and didn't even have his bankcards with him. He really had left in a hurry that morning. He tossed and turned in the single bed with a restlessness he hadn't felt since the night before the ceremonial battle.

Just what exactly had happened?

They had discussed that question until the early hours of the morning. Well by 'discussed' he meant that he sat there listening to the conversation making occasional contributions, but with a defiant ringing in his ears that made it almost impossible to think clearly. His mind was alive with thoughts. He had barely even noticed when Anzu's parents had come home to see the state of their television and player and hadn't even been included in the argument and frantic excuses for the accident that had ensued.

But Yuugi. What… what was that? Had that really been Yuugi? Or was he just being haunted by some malicious poltergeist? He wouldn't put the latter past his recent luck. As if it hadn't been enough to see his Aibou again in the recording, as if it hadn't been too much for him to handle to see another Yuugi's image behind the screen that by all accounts shouldn't have been there. The others claimed it had never moved before, just like a photograph stuck over a film screen, and yet it had moved when he had been there. It had _looked_ at him! Yami knew he could be being paranoid but he swore that the second Yuugi who shouldn't have been there had turned to look at him as if he'd known Yami was there; he'd looked him directly in the eye, how could he not have known Yami was there!

Yami was cetrainly not a stranger to magic and illusions, but this seemed more real then all of them. It could just be a trick, a cruel prank from a new enemy, but it could also be what he kept telling himself couldn't be true.

Was Yuugi… was Yuugi still _here_?

But surely that didn't make any sense. His Aibou would have moved on surely. Would have been accepted into the afterlife without his soul even having to be weighed. He was too pure to stay here; they would want him up there with a passion! But what if… what if there was a problem? Something that none of them knew about because Yuugi couldn't tell them.

But then that would mean Yuugi was trying to communicate with them!

Surely not. He was getting way ahead of himself. Becoming far too susceptible to something horribly familiar to hope. And hope only brought disappointment! Whatever it was… it was probably nothing, just the shadows playing with him again. They knew all of his weaknesses. They knew his _one_ weakness. But that still didn't mean that he felt any less uncertain about everything. There was still this huge tug at the back of his mind that was pulling him back towards… home. He hadn't had contact with Sugoroku since the funeral; he didn't know what the state of the Kame Game Shop was. But the words whispered to him, 'Come home', said he needed to revisit the shop before he returned to Kyushu.

Because if the impossible had happened and Yuugi really was trying to contact him then that was where he wanted Yami to go. And it was a risk he could not take by leaving before at least visiting.

He got up and dressed in the early morning; unable to sleep or even doze with his heart hammering in his chest with emotions he tried to fight down. He grudgingly allowed Anzu's mother to force some breakfast down him before asking about the state of the old shop and house. Anzu, with a worried expression, told him it hadn't been touched since the fire. Sugoroku still owned the land and refused to do anything with it for a reason he refused to divulge. It was just an old derelict shell of a building now; the entire place still scarred black with scorch marks.

Yami nodded and left without another word. The sky was overcast and grey again, the clouds dismal and promising rain, but other than that it was surprisingly warm as he made his way down the streets. It didn't take long, he remembered the way off by heart, and the building was even worse than he had pictured it. Just a shadowy hulking skeleton of crumpled walls and beams, part of the upstairs remained, Yuugi's room and part of the bathroom and hallway but even they had been torn apart by the rain and sun. The seasons of four years had taken its toll on the delicate house; old leaves and soil coated the floors and collapsing stairs, the paint was peeling off the blackened walls and what remained of the glass display cases glinted sharply under all the debris. Rubble decorated the rooms as naturally as the rotten remains of the burnt furniture.

It was a ruin now. Nothing else could describe it.

It was a good job the shop had been tucked away, Yami thought, or the city authorities would force Sugoroku into letting them demolish what was left.

He stood there, in the centre of what was once the shop part of the building, glancing at the devastation with a blank look. What else had he expected? It would have been worse to come here and find that there was nothing but a new apartment block or worse. At least there was something left.

But what now? He hadn't known what he had expected to happen. Just like the day before at the grave site it didn't seem like anything had changed or altered within him, no great message from above had come to him. Perhaps Yuugi really had gone.

He tried to ignore the stab of pain in his chest.

Yami stayed there for another couple of minutes before anything actually happened. And he had been looking intently at the filth-covered floor when it began. A tiny flash caught his attention and he swung his gaze up to look, thinking at first it was just his imagination or a small glint of light reflecting off a shard of glass, but then his eyes widened in disbelief at what he saw. All around him tiny little flashes of light, nothing more substantial then glitter falling from a child's homemade birthday card, were sparking over the rubble and ruins. Swiftly turning the building into what looked like a grove of fairies spreading their glitter-like magic over every surface.

There was a swirl of colour, larger flashes of light covering the dismal sky, the groaning of shifting earth and the hissing of shadow magic and blizzard winds filled his ears.

And Yami could only stare in blank shock as the walls of the Kame Game Shop rebuilt themselves around him.

* * *

**AN: **That was really very fun to write. Despite the whole Emo!Yami theme we seem to have developed. And, wow, longest chapter yet by quite a lot!

Please Review!


	7. Chapter Six

A.N: This has been written for quite some time. Don't know why I was delaying putting it up...

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Six**

Yami couldn't believe what he was seeing, he quite simply couldn't. His eyes had to be playing tricks; this couldn't be real! It was impossible! And yet it was here. The house the game shop _everything _the fire had destroyed was standing untarnished and whole around him. The ashes and dust had been blown away by the wind, the chipped and peeling paintwork vibrant and new, the broken house and shattered glass was rebuilt and perfect as was the memory he retained. It was all the same – all of it – even the Duel Monsters posters and the gaming magazines on display, the little chip on the countertop's edge where Yuugi had once dropped his grandfather's heavy cane, the small scratchy engraving under the Kame Game Shop emblem where Yami had carved his and Yuugi's names, to his hikari's great amusement, on their anniversary of Yuugi solving the Puzzle and that Sugoroku Motou had never noticed.

His heart performing a frantic dance in his chest Yami turned his head to look out the glass doors. There were no clouds or fog, the day was bright and clear, a few straggling students bustled past the moving crowd on their way to school. Everything was as it had been all those years ago; everything was normal again. But despite the 'open' sign on the door there was no one in the shop to man the cash register, there was no 'old man Sugoroku' sweeping the floors and there was no Yuugi to be seen anywhere – the shop was empty.

Confused and disorientated Yami moved towards the stairs that lead to the house behind the shop and eyed the entrance warily. What was going on? Why wasn't he stood in an old and derelict building? He climbed the stairs and entered the kitchen to see, to his strange horror, a breakfast ready made and waiting for its consumer. A cup of black coffee steamed by an untouched plate of hot rice and omelette, a set of chopsticks lay innocently beside an open newspaper with the caption 'Horror as local school's science department is burnt to the ground'. The remains of last night's soup still stuck to bowls left on the countertop; hadn't it been Yuugi's job to load the dishwasher?

With a sense of growing heartache Yami stumbled into the hall. Through the opposite door into the living room he could see the television was turned off, a collection of DVD cases and discarded sweet wrappers littered the floor in front of it. Had Yuugi invited friends last night?

His ears were filled with the sound of his own heart as Yami's breathing began to pick up. He felt as if he had stepped upon the _Marie Celeste_. Everything was laid out with perfect normality, the food was warm the shop was open, and yet the house was silent. Utter silence. Not even the sound of the crowded streets outside penetrated the walls of the shop. And not a single soul was to be found within the building.

And then, just as Yami began to panic, a loud sneeze sounded from further down the hall. He jumped and stared in the direction of the noise, someone _was _here! And the noise… the noise was coming from…

Yami found himself in front of a terrifyingly familiar door without any memory of walking there. The door was a dark, almost metallic blue and was shut firmly but not locked. There was no lock on this door. Yuugi never locked anyone out: not out of his room and not out of his heart. Yami's hand was curled around the brass handle, if he hadn't been clutching it so hard he was sure he would be trembling. This was… this was Yuugi's room.

Yuugi's room. Those two words hit him as if they were a physical force, they wouldn't stop repeating themselves over and over in the confines of his aching head. Yuugi's room. It should be impossible, he shouldn't be here, _this _shouldn't be here. But it was. And so was he. Yuugi's room.

He twisted the handle and pushed open the door.

No. No this wasn't real. This wasn't, wasn't real!

"Yami? What are you doing here? Didn't ji-chan ask you to look after the store?"

A pair of shining purple eyes peered at him from their owners place half buried under bed sheets. Yuugi's cheeks were flushed with sleep, his hair mussed and half lying on his shoulders thanks to the fact that he had buried his head under the pillow at one point last night. Yuugi yawned and leant up on his elbows, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the sleep clinging to his lashes. Yami had forgotten how to breathe.

Yuugi frowned, "Yami?"

He chocked his hand jerking to his side to grasp the doorframe. Stay standing. An illusion, a dream, a result of sleep deprivation and far too much caffeine. Yami clenched his eyes shut, biting his lip and trying not to search his mind for that old dead bond that once existed between them. He wouldn't let himself fall into this trap again, he wouldn't stand here like an idiot and let himself be fooled, and he wouldn't let this dream remind him of that vicious tear across his soul. Of that gaping chasm in his chest.

Yuugi was dead.

He gasped at the sensation of someone touching his cheek. No one touched him. No one came close to him. Not anymore, he wouldn't allow it; the only person worthy enough was no longer capable. He opened his eyes, slowly, resentfully. Yuugi's eyes stared back at him, confused and oh so very open. A pale and healthy rouge dusted his skin, not the deathly white transparent powder that had so firmly imprinted itself into his mind's eye. Yuugi was moving. Yuugi was breathing. Yuugi was real.

Yuugi was alive.

"A-aibou…" Yami's voice was failing him, dying in his throat before the sound could even touch the air.

Yuugi rubbed his thumbs across his Yami's cheeks, "You're crying." He whispered in disbelief.

He knew it was true, he could feel the wetness on his cheeks, but that didn't matter, it didn't matter at all. Yuugi was here. Yuugi was alive.

Before Yami knew what had happened he found himself clutching Yuugi tight to him. His arms wrapped so tightly around his hikari's body that the tips of his fingers touched his arms on opposite sides, Yuugi, although confused, was returning the hug by wrapping his arms around Yami's neck. He gasped at the sheer reality of the touch. Yuugi was solid and warm and _real._ Yami turned his head to bury his nose into Yuugi's hair, to take deep breaths of that sweet herbal shampoo Yuugi always used and bit his lip again from the sheer flood of memories the smell brought.

He didn't want to ask, he didn't want to break this heaven, but he had to know. "But you… you're…" He couldn't even say the word aloud.

Yuugi pulled back a little to look up at him, "Did you have another dream?"

When Yami had first been realised from the Puzzle nightmares had been a severe problem. The deep icy blackness that had been his prison for three millennia re-materialising in his dreams. They had faded with time but the odd recurrence of one was not uncommon. And now that Yuugi was no longer with him they had returned with a vengeance: only now they weren't about icy blackness. A dream? A four-year long nightmare.

"Yes."

Yuugi shook his head sympathetically hugging him again. "Remember what you used to tell me when I was scared?"

Yami shook his head, wishing Yuugi would be more specific. Did he mean during battle city on Kaiba's ship? Or when he was doubting the outcome of a duel? Or simply just after Yuugi had had a bad dream of his own?

"You told me to believe. To believe that whatever was wrong about something would become right in the end. As corny as it was you always made it sound so… so not corny."

Yami blinked a slow hesitant smile touching his lips for the first time in years, now he remembered, he had almost forgotten. The memory buried under his grief. "And then I swore that if it wasn't right I'd _make_ it right for you."

Yuugi giggled, "Because it would make me happy. And that's all that ever mattered to you."

Yami hugged him tighter. "It's all that _still _matters to me." He corrected.

Something flickered in Yuugi's eyes. But then he sneezed again distracting Yami from the strangeness of the look. He frowned, "Yuugi why are you still in bed? Shouldn't you be at school by now?"

Yuugi smiled and for the first time Yami noticed the slight shadows around his hikari's eyes, and the clammy look to his warm skin. He reached out and placed his palm flat against Yuugi's forehead before he could reply. He hissed quietly at the heat radiating from the skin. "You're ill. What do you think you're doing out of bed if you're ill Aibou."

It was more of a demand then a reprimand and Yuugi laughed through a sniffle. "That's what Ji-chan said, only not as loudly, he said I had to stay home today. Which means you're gonna have to put up with the guys coming and fussing over me after school."

"No I don't. No one's fussing over you but me, they will just have to wait until you're better. Now bed." It was almost frightening how easily he was slipping back into his role. How easily he was forgetting that horrid dream.

"But Yami," Yuugi whined, "I wanna sit downstairs where the TV is."

"Is the couch your bed?"

"Well no…"

"Then no."

"But if I take my quilt then I can make it my bed."

"Yuugi."

"Please Yami. And I'll be closer to you so you can look after me better."

"Oh no you don't. You can't use those tactics – or those eyes – on me hikari," Yuugi's eyes grew even bigger, "it isn't working Yuugi," the amethysts began shimmering with water, "stop that Aibou", Yuugi's lip pouted downwards and wobbled, "Aibou you know you need rest."

"But I can get rest on the couch in front of some mind numbing anime instead of sitting uncomfortable, lonely, and bored up here."

Yami sighed heavily; he gave in, "Fine."

Yuugi grinned and hugged him, Yami, despite having just lost the argument, embraced his hikari and kissed his temple relishing the feel of being able to touch Yuugi again. He watched the slight blush spread on Yuugi's cheeks and wondered if it was just the fever. Nodding firmly to himself after Yuugi turned away to gather his light blue comforter into his arms, Yami swore he wasn't going to make the same mistake he had made in that nightmare, he was going to tell Yuugi he loved him before anything happened. Maybe the dream had been a sign to get him to hurry up?

He followed Yuugi closely as the boy lead the way into the living room (just in case the hikari fainted or something else illness related) and pulled him down to sit next to the spirit on the loveseat. Yuugi didn't look in the least bit surprised and only curled into Yami's side, wrapping the comforter around both of them. Yami held Yuugi's warm little hand in his own larger palm, running his thumb over the delicate fingers he sighed, he could fall asleep right here and never wake up. Yuugi giggled slightly at the ticklish sensation and laid his head on his other's shoulder content and at peace. They used to sit like this every time they came back from one of their adventures, Yami said it was to 'reassert their bond for future challenges', Yuugi just liked to be comfortable.

Yami closed his eyes and breathed deep, the naturally fresh sent of his hikari clearing away all the clinging shadows of his nightmare, Yuugi smelt like the ocean breeze, or an early spring morning when the frost still whitens the ground and the air is crisp and light.

It was a beautiful thing to wake up to.

The soft little body felt so right in his arms he wondered how he could have ever have doubted this reality. The sharp pangs of his heart weren't so piercing anymore. He was about to reach into the back of his mind to find that link between him and his other, just to feel his hikari's thoughts as he once did and relish the sensation of a smooth connection between their souls, not the jagged rip of the dream, to hear Yuugi's quietly soft mental voice in his own head. But just as Yami began to reach down Yuugi began to cough, and quite harshly too, distracting Yami quickly and efficiently from his previous activity.

"Aibou? Aibou are you alright?"

Yuugi had a sort of guilty look about him when he replied, "Just a sore throat Yami." And as if he had just realised something he leaned away from the spirit, "I can't let you get sick too, go on and tend to the store like Ji-chan asked, I'll be fine on the couch."

Yami nodded worriedly, "I'll be back in a moment. The medicine is still in the bathroom?"

Yuugi nodded, "Where else would it be?"

Yami just shrugged and stood up, already missing the warmth of his hikari's body, and made his way down the hall again. But part way he paused in front of the kitchen; that breakfast and newspaper were still sat on the table. Yami frowned as he stared at the mug of coffee. It was still steaming. Shouldn't it have cooled down at least a little by now? More to the point, who was supposed to be eating it? Did Sugoroku make it for him? He did feel as if he hadn't eaten in quite some time. But to that matter where _was_ Yuugi's Grandfather? Yami closed his eyes for a moment and raised his hands to rub his palms across his eyes tiredly, was it just him or did the light dim for a second there?

"You alright, Yami?" He opened his eyes again to stare directly into his Aibou's beautiful purple eyes that were suddenly very close to him. Yami smiled to reassure his hikari, he felt a cool breeze skate across his skin and heard bird song carried on the air currents travelling through the open window in the kitchen. That nightmare had affected him more then he thought, it felt as if he hadn't touched his Aibou in years. But Yuugi was here and he was real and warm and solid and alive. There was nothing but his overactive imagination and suspicious nature that was the problem.

"Fine. Just a headache."

Yuugi frowned worriedly, "You may be getting what I've got…" he trailed off but then brightened up almost instantly, "Ji-chan keeps the headache pills under the counter in the shop I'll get them."

"There's really no need Aibou I think I can find them on my own." But Yuugi had already whisked off down the stairs to the main shop. Sighing in irritation (Yuugi should be in bed!) he followed the boy. When he got to the doorway he asked "And why doesn't he just keep them in the medicine cabinet with the rest of the first aid kit?"

Yuugi grinned over at him from his crouched position under the cash register and said as if it were obvious, "Because Yami, if he gets a headache while tending the store he can't just disappear off into the house like some people."

Yami gave a sheepish smile and shrugged, "Can't argue with that logic, or with smart-ass other half's." He joked as an afterthought. Yuugi stuck his tongue out in Yami's direction and went back to searching the selves.

Yami felt himself relax, at first he fought against it, so unused to the alien feeling, but now he was smiling and even joking with his Yuugi he felt his shoulders slump a little form their severe posture and it just felt so very good to be like this again.

He was home.

Striding over towards the magazine stand he plucked the most convenient one from out the rack and looked at the picture of the Magician of Illusions on the cover. That dream wasn't going to stop him being interested in his gaming, or with his cute little 'game' himself. But then his eyes flickered over the sequence of numbers just above the Magician of Illusions' hat and he raised an eyebrow, an almost smirk forming on his face.

"Aibou I think Sugoroku may be losing it," he said jokingly, "this magazines out of date." He frowned, looking at the numbers on the corner of the magazine cover. "Four years out of date."

Yami expected Yuugi to laugh. He expected Yuugi to come over and shake his head disbelievingly. Hell he even expected Yuugi to reprimand him for being so silly, tell him that it couldn't be _that _far out of date. But he didn't. Yami looked up at his hikari's silence meeting his gaze and blinking at what he saw.

Tears.

Yuugi was crying.

"Aibou?" For a split second Yami was frightened he had upset Yuugi in some way by mentioning his grandfather. But then he blinked again at the faint sound he suddenly noticed reaching his ears. His heart thumped painfully as he recognised the distant roaring to be fire. The sound of fire from too far away to feel the heat but not far enough away to be safe.

But the sun was still shining and the sky was still blue and there was no sign of a fire anywhere. The people outside the shop windows continued bustling past. Shouldn't the school rush be over by now? Why did no one enter the door? Why was the shop so utterly silent despite the traffic outside? Yami narrowed his gaze ever so slightly.

"…Yuugi?"

His hikari just looked at him, looked him straight in the eye, and cried. Silently. But it didn't seem as if the tears were really there, Yami didn't think he saw a single one hit the ground. His grip on the magazine tightened. He wanted to go over there and touch Yuugi, to hold him and comfort him and make sure he was all right, but he couldn't. He just couldn't. There was something about those tears and the look in Yuugi's eyes that made Yami not _want _to. He had no memory of ever being so confused.

Yuugi crossed his arms, gripping his elbows and pulling on the material of his pyjamas. He sobbed.

"I love you."

Yami's eyes widened. He felt his heart break a little. "Yu-"

"I'm so sorry."

The vision shattered.

Yami's hand tightened around air.

The sky was dull and overcast again, the feel of pending rainfall even heavier in the air then before. The roof of the game shop was no longer above him. It was below him in rubble and ruin. Yuugi was no longer stood in front of him, he had utterly vanished as the vision of the game shop had shattered like glass and fallen like the ice that had just begun to melt from around his dead heart and become the dust and filth now laying on the ground.

Yami felt his knees give way and he hit the ground hard, he didn't care for the now torn pants, he knelt there and died and died all over again. "No." Not this world again. Not this nightmare reality that was just too terrible to be real. Too many things were wrong with it for it to be accepted. This was fake, it _had _to be fake! This was the dream, the nightmare, and there was no escape. Not ever.

Yuugi was gone.

Yuugi was dead.

* * *

A.N: I'm going to get hunted down and killed horribly aren't I? It is labelled angst for a reason.

Well I thought you guys deserved a bit of fluff after all that angst but I couldn't do that ending where he wakes up and 'it was all a dream' because that is just so unsatisfying plus I really wanted to get physical Yuugi in here somehow and this was the best way of doing it, don't worry he's still not _technically_ gone and he's going to make numerous more appearances, but either way I think I'm almost done torturing poor Yami, he needs a real break.

Let's hope what he finds now (next chapter) will give him that break.

P.S. I should hope you all know the story of the Marie Celeste (I think that's how you spell the original, its otherwise known as the Mary Celeste). It was a real story from years ago but adapted and made more famous by some well known author person I can't remember the name of. Anyway it's about these men out at sea finding an abandoned boat (the Celeste) and boarding it to see what they could take and stuff but being really creeped out because there was no sign of any struggle or reason as to why it was abandoned in the middle of the sea, the place was in pristine condition and there was still food on the plates set out for dinner and clothes folded neatly in trunks ect, it was literally as if the crew members had vanished minutes before the men came aboard. There is a lot more to it and I watched a documentary that pretty much blew the myth up but it's still a cool story.

P.S.S. Is the Magician of Illusions real or is it just me thinking of something else? (Possibly Cardaptors? My little sister's been watching it and it's infiltrating my brain.)

Review Please!


	8. Chapter Seven

**AN:** There is no real explanation that will excuse me for not updating this story for nearly a year. I can only tell you that if Microsoft Word hadn't had a complete and utter spaz and deleted everything for this story I had planned/written then I probably wouldn't have experienced the writer's block that it gave me. Forgive me. The story is now back on track, and it shall not be abandoned until it is finished, which will hopefully be soon. There will be a maximum of three chapters after this one, and I've written half of chapter eight already. I hope not everyone has lost intrest and will continue to review.

And for poor Yami? Well, that glimmer of hope I promised is directly on its way.

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Seven**

It was over.

Yami was not aware of when he had decided this, but he knew it with a certainty that went beyond the physical world. It was over. He was over. There was nothing left, nothing but the most desolate of thoughts, just the charred remains of a life, of a hope, that he had foolishly dared to believe in.

Was he truly going mad?

His fingers clutched at the filth he knelt on, his breath came in great shuddering gasps that made his lungs feel like punctured balloons, above him a low rumble made the air shiver in the impending threat of a storm. And he no longer had the will power to control the tears.

His mind was in turmoil, his thoughts chaotic, though on the outside he gave no sign. A statue knelt on broken ground, fingernails filled with dirt and water spilling from a pair of eyes so dark with suffering they could be black.

Had he imagined all of that?

Was it nothing more than a product of his certain insanity?

Or, impossibly, had it been real?

Yami knew he was clutching at straws. At tiny remains of straws, trying to keep hold of the paradise of the eternity of a minute ago. But he had been certain he had sensed Shadow Magic as the illusion created itself. Had it only been an attempt by the Shadow Realm to comfort it's Master? Despite how weak the connection between them had become. Or could he have done it subconsciously, driven by his desire to see Yuugi again?

Clutching at straws. A desperate attempt to fill the chasm inside. His chest felt empty, even worse than before, he felt as if there were no heartbeat there although he felt how he choked on the air he should have needed.

It was impossible.

He couldn't have amassed that much Shadow Magic. Not now. The Shadows were not capable of escaping the Realm in such force without someone opening a gateway for them. And he held very little prowess over them now. Not without the other half of his soul helping to guide him with the necessary light.

So then the illusion had been just that: an illusion. No warmth, no hope, no bad dream. No Yuugi.

Just a product of his insanity.

It was over.

* * *

Ryou's apartment had always been quiet, despite the presence of Bakura floating occasionally in and out the rooms with a distinctly distrustful air. The silence never bothered him, after all it had been there most his life and had now integrated itself so far into his routine that Ryou sometimes felt he had become a living part of that silence, and that it was as much a part of him as any of his thoughts and physical being were.

Yet today he was agitated. And curling up on the loveseat with a cheesy paperback novel and a mug of hot chocolate was, for once, not soothing his agitation.

He wondered absently if it had anything to do with Bakura's ominous brooding. The spirit was sprawled out over the couch, glaring at the coffee table as if he were trying to persuade it to burst into flames. Needles to say, he wasn't succeeding.

Bakura's brooding today had a different quality about it than usual; the hostile aura he gave off (which these days very rarely affected Ryou) was not quite so hostile. The anger seemed narrowed down to something particular, rather than directed at the world in general. In fact, Bakura had been off since the Pharaoh's return, Ryou realised with some shock, feeling disconcerted that he hadn't noticed it before.

Ryou himself had been uncomfortably aware of the Pharaoh's presence in Domino since they met at Anzu's, he seemed to have changed the city by being here. Though Ryou was sure the change was nothing more than psychological. His appearance shocked them. To a passer-by Atemu would have appeared as nothing more than a man hardly worth a second glance, but to those that had known him before Yuugi's death, he had become frightening. Frightening by becoming the living proof of what a human could live through and survive, not physically, though even his physicality seemed to have shrunk and become questionable, but spiritually and mentally. Ryou doubted the group felt it as acutely as himself and Malik, he doubted they understood the full extent of the damage time and loss had inflicted, he doubted even the Pharaoh saw exactly how much of himself he had lost.

Bakura had surveyed the encounter through Ryou's memories, and it was clearly affecting him in a negative way. But exactly why and how Ryou wasn't sure. Could it be that Bakura was displeased by the Pharaoh's return simply because they hated each other? If anything, since Yuugi's death, Bakura had become more and more uninterested in their old rivalry, as if the current state the Pharaoh was in made him prey that was just too easy to take down. Ryou knew Bakura. He knew Bakura liked to fight for his victories. And the Pharaoh hadn't been in any condition to fight for years now.

Or was it that seeing what had become of someone as powerful as the Pharaoh unnerved Bakura? Was he staring blunt evidence of his own weakness in the face? Did Bakura see the possible future for himself if Ryou ever passed on without him? Was it _that_ that was making him angry and intolerant of the things he usually found entertainment in? That proof. That unconquerable Achilles heel. That shell of a man that had once been one of the greatest on Earth.

Ryou glanced back at the use-worn pages of his book. It would be enough to unnerve anyone. That insight into a future as bleak as anything could be. Closing the cover he sighed, it seemed that nothing would get what happened out of his head today.

Ryou, just like everyone else in their group, was no stranger to all kinds of supernatural happenings. And something like this would be a perfect interview for their next great enemy. A warning of other, sinister things.

Shadow things.

But there was one flaw in the plan. One huge gapping bottomless pit of a flaw that rendered all of their excuses and attempts at explanations useless.

There _were_ no more enemies.

There were no more Shadows. The only gateways to the Realm that remained existed through the three spirits and in the bond between their Other's. The Pharaoh's Other was no longer here, thus no Shadows strong enough to lift more than a single empty cup could escape from there. And outside intervention through the bond in the other two couples was nothing short of impossible. The bond was more than airtight. And the Shadows were no longer used. Not truly. The Items held them back these days, and all the Items were held under heavy locks and many keys.

And so, they came to the only conclusion they could. That it was, for once, not the forces of darkness surfacing under one evil psychotic ruler that would take over the whole world with it so that the planet would be shrouded by Shadows for a thousand years during which unspeakably terrible things would happen from which mankind would never recover.

Ryou had to smile, although a little sardonically, at his own thoughts.

Sometimes he wished for a normal life. He really did.

"Fucking idiots."

Ryou jumped as his silence was interrupted by Bakura. The other had growled his thought into the room with a distinctly animalistic quality, apparently unaware of voicing it out loud.

Placing his half finished mug of hot chocolate down on the coffee table Ryou fixed his other with a searching look and asked, "Who?"

Bakura only sent him a sharp glare and turned sharply over on the couch so he was facing away from the room and Ryou.

Oh, so Bakura wanted to play that game did he? Ryou shook his head; he wasn't about to give in just because his Other had decided to ignore him. Watching the back of Bakura's head intently Ryou spoke again, "Who, Bakura? You can't just come out with something like that and expect me to drop it."

"Why the Hell not?"

"Because believe it or not I know you, you lived in my head for the better part of four years. Now tell me what has gotten you so riled up lately." This bravery could very well have gotten him hurt a year ago, but Ryou had a strong will and a backbone to go with it, he wasn't going to lie down and take Bakura's attitude when he could he hiding a secret involving them.

"Your friends," Bakura growled after a moment of heavy silence, "Your damned friends are complete and utter idiots. The Pharaoh included."

Ryou sat up a little straighter, "Why?"

Bakura moved suddenly, standing up from the couch with a swift single movement and glaring at him, "Blind! The lot of you."

"Bakura?" Ryou coaxed, then shouted a startled "Wait!" When the spirit turned on his heel and stormed into the hall. Ryou stood and sped after him.

Bakura was by the coat rack, tearing the garments down in search for his thickest coat, the weather was growing cooler by the moment. He had a deep frown set into his features, an angry kind of resentment and frustration burning just below the surface of his skin.

Ryou tried to reach out to stop him, but his hand was hit away with a grunt, "What do you mean? Blind?"

Bakura spared him a glance, "Exactly what the word sounds like,_ Yadounushi_, I thought you were good with words."

"Don't twist my sentences now, Bakura! Tell me what you meant."

With an almighty growl Bakura turned to him and hissed, "I meant that you and all of those other idiots are missing something that is right in front of your eyes and if you aren't careful that shadow of a man will lose even more of himself. So you better start thinking with those brains of yours and start seeing the fireworks before that poor boy is lost for good."

Having found his coat Bakura turned on his heel, marching down the hall towards the front door, tugging his arms through the sleeves as he went, "Do me a favour, Ry', go and tell your friends that. Now."

Ryou blinked, utterly confused with this strange behaviour and a little unnerved by this apparent show of compassion. He had always known Bakura was much more sensitive to the spirits and their actions than even Isis, but surely… surely Bakura couldn't mean…

"Where are you going?" He asked in a much quieter voice.

"Out." And with that the apartment door snapped shut.

* * *

There weren't many people who frequented past this run down building anymore, and so Yami was not disturbed that afternoon. Not that he would have heard anyone that walked past, and it was doubtful he would have even noticed someone if they were stood in front of him shouting and shaking his shoulder, he was too far lost within his own mind. His ears were only filled with that high-pitched whistling sound that comes after an extremely loud noise and the ears have not quite managed to recover yet.

His eyes stood half open but completely empty. If it hadn't been for the slow shallow breathing even a doctor would probably label him as dead. An architect would probably comment on the strangeness of the statue abandoned in a ruined building. The wind pulled at his hair and chilled his skin; the dirty fingers steadily turning a purple blue, his lips, dry thanks to the chill, had cracked in the weather. A picture of desolation. What a photographer wouldn't give for such a chance to reflect such emotion in a captured still frame!

But still, no one found him. Only leaves came to him to gather about his knees with dry rustling, they were little parts of nature, dead things now whose only purpose was to decay and give that ground back the nutrients that their tree stole from it.

When one of those little dead things was picked up by a particularly strong breeze and rustled against his cheek as it was taken hostage and hauled away to no one knows where (and then again who cares where) Yami's features twisted under the surprise of the sudden touch to his face. For an obscure moment the memory of Yuugi's skin against that same cheek bombarded his otherwise blank thoughts and fresh pain gave a tint of agony to the grey desolation. The leaf had not stopped to wipe away his tears with soft caresses, the salt remained smeared across his cheek regardless of its touch.

He should go soon, but he had no will power to even look up at the sky to try and gauge the time by how light it was. It wasn't very light at all, dark billowing storm clouds were brewing over the city, if you stopped and listened closely the ears could pick up the sound of the ocean's waves protesting to the weather. If you looked towards it the eyes would just be able to pick out the wall of rain driving steadily towards the city.

Suddenly a great rumble made the air vibrate with the sound, clouds lighting momentarily as if illuminated by an inner light. A great gust of wind blasted its way over the streets and gripped all of the leaves that had settled down to rest and decay, throwing them mercilessly back into the sky.

Yami had looked up at the sound, a little life returning to his eyes through awareness, and when the wind hit he flinched and gripped his arms by their elbows. The wind picked up the debris and shuffled it around, not quite strong enough to pick the larger parts up yet.

And with the shifting of the dirt, Yami's newly awaked sight caught a glimpse of something.

Something gold.

An almost curiosity surfaced from the dull plane of his heart, blinking to make sure he wasn't seeing the bright colour as part of another hallucination and surprising himself when the glint remained as vibrant as ever.

Slowly he leant forwards, reaching out a hand to pull away the ruined board of plywood that looked as if it had once been part of the shop's counter top.

He thought his heart might just give up completely at what he saw then.

The golden box that had once held the pieces of the Sennen Puzzle sat before him, as clean and new looking as the day Yuugi had first taken hold of it.

It seemed as if his mind had short-circuited, what should, and once would, have sent him into a spiral of thinking and planning and exploring possibilities and questions as to why the box was there and what it could mean, was now only causing a sense of disbelief. This time when he reached out to run his fingers over the edges and trace the patterns they were not trembling out of sheer emotion, the trembled simply because the cold seemed to have finally sunk into his bones.

The gold met his skin. Warm and real.

But then again, Yuugi had also felt warm and real, alive and bright in his arms. He could not allow himself to hope again. The box looked so out of place in the rubble that Yami was certain it had to be another dream or nightmare.

Stiffly, carefully, he brought the box into his lap. Watching it for a moment as if to be certain that moving it wasn't going to make it explode or disintegrate in his grip, he then gripped the edge of the lid, and pulled it off to glance inside.

He expected it be empty.

It wasn't.

Resting inside was the Sennen Puzzle itself. In pieces. The gold gave off a gentle heat, the corners glinting in a light that wasn't there. He felt the magic it still held within it. Sensed the dormant power. And, somehow, hidden deep under the current of magic, he could have sworn he felt Yuugi's presence there. Weak and shadowy, like the echo of an echo. But it was there.

Yami picked up the centrepiece of the Puzzle, scrutinising the eye it bore.

In the near distance, lightning flashed to the ground.

* * *

_It wasn't like he wanted to hurt them. He didn't want any of them to suffer pain of any kind. But they were being so slow. And it felt like they were doing it on purpose almost._

_He loved them, all of them, and he knew they loved him. And so he knew they would forgive him, even if they could not understand._

_It was frustrating him. It seemed the ones that actually had a grasp, or possessed the capacity to grasp, what was going on and explain this to everyone were avoiding the situation. The thief was being a lazy, brooding thing, he hadn't seen him but he wasn't stupid, if the thief wasn't busy being angry he would have been here by now. And she was nowhere to be found. He would have to intervene again on her behalf otherwise they'd get nowhere very fast._

_It would be soon anyway. He couldn't stand to know he what the other was doing to himself even now. He almost regretted what he had done. But it was necessary._

_And the saying had always been that it had to get worse before it got better._

_It would be soon now._

_If they forgave him or not, he would not spent his eternity alone._

_

* * *

_

Anzu inhaled sharply when the Pharaoh finally stumbled through their front door, looking for all the world like he'd just done a round trip of all the bars in the city. He hung limply to the door frame for a good moment as she just stood there in the hall, too shocked to remember what she had been doing or what she was supposed to be doing now, he had one arm cradling something solid under his jacket. The storm crashed outside, momentarily lighting him from behind in a sinister starkness that reminded her so strongly of when he'd first started coming out the Puzzle that she shook with the remembered terror, and for a moment she was years younger again and they were all still in High School and Yuugi was still alive somewhere under the malignant spirit who had taken possession of him.

But then Yami coughed, stumbling into the threshold of their home soaking wet and miserable.

"Pharaoh." She spoke, concerned, moving forwards to help him remove his soaked jacket, but he rebuffed her almost instantly, pushing her away from him with an arm.

Hearing the noise, her visitors glanced into the hallway from the living room as Yami yanked off his boots with unnecessary force. Ryou's eyes held a curious look, one that had been set there since Bakura had left their apartment in such a strange manner. Jounouchi, however, frowned in concern at another display of the unusual behaviour the other had been doing for the past couple of days, wondering what on earth could have set him off now.

"You've been gone all day, where've you been?"

His frown turned into a scowl of frustration as Yami pushed past them all and took the steps two at a time, vanishing into the bedroom that had temporarily been given to him. Glancing at each other, the three followed him; this was strange even for Yami.

They found him sat hunched over on the bed, his arm still hiding something under his jacket, the room was dark, the pale yellow curtains hid the window from view and the rain that pelted the glass was loud between them.

"I saw Yuugi." Yami said in a voice so quiet they had to strain their ears to hear it, when they did they were sure that they had been hearing things.

"Yuugi?" Anzu asked, "But… but Pharaoh, Yuugi's… he's…"

"Dead. I think by now I've noticed that, thank you, Anzu."

"Hey, we're not disputing your sanity but, well, you… how _could _you have seen him?" Jounouchi tried to help Anzu's argument, both conveniently forgetting about the incident with the DVD the day before. A DVD that was acting up was one thing, seeing dead people all over the place was another. As much as it felt like it, this wasn't the movies.

"Where did you see him, Pharaoh?" Ryou interrupted, a strange expression clouding his features.

"The Game Shop." Yami said, seeming to clutch to Ryou's words, the only one that sounded as if he would believe him, "He was there, I know he was. At first I thought I was going insane like the rest of you think I am. But he was there, I saw him, I spoke to him, touched him! It _was_ Yuugi, it has to be." It was the most he had said in one go in the whole time he'd been here, "Because when he left, I found this."

Yami finally pulled his wet jacket away from what he'd been cradling with his arm all this time, and what was there caused them all to stare. The box of the Sennen Puzzle. As gold and as solid as ever, as if it hadn't been missing for three years.

"Impossible." Slipped past Anzu's lips, Jounouchi continued to stare.

Ryou bit his lip nervously, as if something had just been confirmed. And he wasn't sure whether that thing was good or not.

Yami curled in on himself then, not caring for how wet he must be getting the sheets of the beds with his sopping wet clothes, he curled up against the corner of the wall where the top of the bed rested with his back on the headboard and his knees up by his chest, as if to protect the golden box from vanishing again at any given moment. His one last link, and his one last possible hope that told him he might not be insane, that Yuugi really was there and spoke to him and held him and told Yami he loved him.

"Did… did he say anything in particular to you?" Anzu asked, hesitancy a strong note in her voice.

When they received no answer from the huddled form of the once pharaoh she sighed. Silently Jounouchi began ushering them all out of the dark room, it was as clear as day that Yami wasn't going to tell them anything else now. And although his curiosity was burning him alive, he did not want to push a man that could fight back by withdrawing from them entirely. He had grown a lot from the days he would have gone barrelling forwards with blazing eyes and loud voices when he didn't get the information he wanted, he still couldn't stand waiting with the kind of impatience he suffered from, but this was not a situation he could solve by shouting loudly enough. The more they pushed, the more Yami would dig his heels in and say nothing, he was sure. Trying to coax something that was obviously a painful memory out of him was not something to do while he was in such a fragile state.

"We'll be downstairs if you need us, Yami." Ryou spoke clearly, hoping that by using a more informal name it would help put his point across.

An almost smoky atmosphere prevailed in the room once Jounouchi had eased the door completely shut, a kind of half-light that filtered weakly through the pale yellow curtains and made the room resemble a nicotine gold.

Yami clutched the box that contained the Sennen Puzzle in his hands, cradling it between his thighs and chest.

"You told me to believe." He whispered to the air.

And the golden eye of Horus glinted back at him in the silence of his agony.

* * *

**AN: **The next chapter, believe it or not, is practically done. It will be up in a couple of weeks time, and the third (and possibly final) chapter shouldn't be too long after that. We are finally getting places in this story, it certainly took long enough, huh?

Review Please!


	9. Chapter Eight

**AN:** During the construction of this scene/chapter, I had the most compelling urge to make Mariku speak like Yoda. Be glad I resisted that urge at the last moment.

**Phoenix's Ashes **

**Chapter Eight**

Malik bent his knees, hefting the heavy cardboard box filled to the brim with old Christmas decorations into his arms. Wobbling for a moment to find how to balance the box against his chest and still see where he was going, he eventually gained his footing and began the hazardous journey down the steps into the basement.

"Remind me again why I'm doing this?" Malik growled at his other half, who was currently sprawled lazily over an old couch in a shadowy corner of the basement.

Mariku glanced away from his ceiling staring and over at his struggling lighter half, "Because Isis sister of yours thought moving boxes would be a good idea?"

"Yes, because that makes sense." Malik huffed, pausing halfway down the stairs to reaffirm his hold on the box.

"Maybe she had a premonition that hefting boxes around would save the world from a great evil that would use our tinsel and baubles for its evil plot?"

"Don't get sarky with me, Mariku." Malik snapped, physical labour always made him touchy.

"Or, maybe," Malik could hear the smirk in Mariku's voice, "She thought you were getting a little fat and needed the exercise."

Mariku had to dodge the flying bauble suddenly hurtling in his direction, the cheep green tinted glass shattered on the wall behind and fell in pieces to the floor. Mariku straightened on the couch again and eyed his fuming lighter half amusedly, Malik had reached the table that ran the length of the far wall and set the box down there just in time to grab and throw the item at the offender of his physique.

"Tut, tut, light of mine," Mariku smirked, "Loosing our touch are we?"

Malik regained his composure with a scowl, smoothing his t-shirt out and retorting with: "And why, Mr. Couch Potato, aren't you helping?"

"Because _my_ physique is as fit and healthy as could be."

"Is that with or without the amount of chocolate you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday giving you that growing belly there?" Malik smirked triumphantly as Mariku frowned and immediately looked down to assess his mid-riff, another win for him!

Turning back to the boxes he had shifted, now resting on the table, Malik wondered if there was a reason for moving them from the store closet to the basement. It was highly likely that his sister just wanted to keep them busy for a while as she flounced off to do whatever it was she did when she vanished. Malik would really have to find out one day.

Sighing Malik realised there were still a small number of boxes waiting for him by the door to the basement steps, well, the sooner he got them moved the sooner he could return to blowing apart some ugly virtual aliens.

Taking the steps two at a time, and ignoring Mariku's grumbling upon realising he'd fallen for such an obvious trick, Malik reached the hallway and crouched by the next box.

Just in time for the front door to swing open and omit a disgruntled looking Bakura.

Malik straightened again, narrowing his gaze at the intruder, "Wasn't that door locked?"

"It was." Bakura replied simply. "That annoyance of a seer at home?"

"Is that the Tomb Robber?" Mariku's voice shouted up from the basement.

"No!" Malik shouted back, then said to Bakura, "And no, she isn't."

"Sure now? Sure she couldn't just be in the back room and you're just too lazy to check, or perhaps you feel more inclined to lie to me for some kind of sad amusement?"

Malik raised an eyebrow, Bakura was unusually snappish today, normally he rolled with the possible lies or not lies and they would banter for a while, but he suddenly looked all business. Even if his sister had been in he would have said no for the heck of the argument, but this time she actually wasn't, and Bakura would just have to believe that.

"I'm sure. She vanished a few hours ago."

Bakura grumbled a few inaudible words under his breath; there was a pause, as if he was listening for something, before he replied, "Any idea where she could be?"

Malik looked at him with a suspicious eye, "Why are you suddenly so interested?"

"We have business, her and I."

"Is it so pressing that it cannot wait until tonight?" Malik wasn't sure he wanted to know exactly what kind of 'business' Bakura wanted with his sister. It sounded shifty, perhaps he could warn her via a quick phone call after he left.

"Yes," Bakura was loath to go into any kind of detail with the idiot facing him, "It is her own fault for delaying it this long, it could have sorted a good while back."

Malik really was getting suspicious now, he crossed his arms stubbornly, "I'm sure if it was that important she would have told me."

Bakura growled a curse, strode forwards and shoved Malik to the side before he could react, leaning into the basement doorway he shouted, "Oi, freak, where's the seer?"

"Museum!"

Bakura grunted an almost-thanks at Mariku's answer, and was leaving the house by the time Malik had gathered enough wits to begin yelling at his other half for giving way so easily. He really should have learnt by now that Mariku's sole reason for existence was to piss him off.

* * *

The bedroom curtains hadn't been opened since Yami had gone to sleep the night before he visited the Kame Game Shop. Beyond the material, thin sunlight filtered through patches of clouds, and the world went about its business oblivious.

Yami awoke with the groggy feeling of a lingering cold. His eyes felt dry and ached when he blinked, his body felt dirty and unwashed, slightly sticky with yesterdays perspiration. His cheeks felt stiff with dried salt. He lay clothed in the previous day's outfit, having collapsed on top of the bed sheets in exhaustion sometime in the early morning. His bones were stiff and ached with a chill that refused to lift, being caught in yesterdays rain, and then refusing to do anything but drip dry in the soaking clothes, had probably made him ill.

Didn't matter, he was ill already in an entirely different manner.

Yami blinked at the ceiling, briefly closing his eyes so he could feel them ache and prove to himself that he was actually awake. This nightmare apparently wasn't ever going to end.

Scattered about him on the single bed were the irregular shaped golden pieces of the Sennen Puzzle. He had spent most of the night staring at them until a sudden burst of desperate energy caused him to spend many more hours frantically trying to make them fit together, until the sun broke the dark horizon with light and he simply couldn't stay awake anymore.

It was probably about noon now.

Forcing his stiff body to move, Yami sat up and stared listlessly at the pieces gathered around his person, a few he had managed to slot together last night, little clumps of two or three connected pieces dotted cream covers.

Last night, no, the whole of yesterday, felt like a dream now. And his last connection to it all as something that really happened, whether it was a figment of insanity or not, was the Puzzle. It seemed as if his mind had grown a strange numbness, after the obscure and desperate hope he had clung to yesterday, the elation and disbelief had subsided into a steady drive to complete the Puzzle, though he didn't know if he could do it. Nor what would happen when, or if, he did.

A tug on his heart directed him towards the pieces again, and numbly his fingers reached out to pick the nearest ones up. He gathered some in his lap, leaning against the backrest, and set to work again trying to do what Yuugi had managed so many years ago.

It had taken his Aibou seven years to complete. Would he be able to do it faster? He didn't have Yuugi's memories on how he did it, the snippets of the times he worked on it were stretched too far over time, and his mind had been too clouded with fear and worry when he had finally put the majority of it together and then, amongst the pain of Ushio's beating, slid home the final piece. Yami knew none of it.

He was stumbling blindly in the dark, only knowing, deep down, that this could very well be his last connection to his Aibou. His last chance. A hope he had been without since the fire, pulsed like a dull light bulb in his chest. He felt like a puppet, like his fingers were attached to string and someone from far away was operating the way he moved.

Yami had forced down almost all of the excitement that had nearly overwhelmed him last night. This was why he felt numb now. Because if he actually gave into what his heart was begging him to believe, and then his hope turned out to be false, he doubted he would survive a heartbreak that potent.

But the tug in his chest demanded he work on completing the Puzzle and he could not help but feel that someone was helping his fingers move and fit the pieces into the right places.

Because one by one, the golden pieces of the Sennen Puzzle, were beginning to fall into place.

* * *

The museum was almost empty.

The halls echoed Bakura's footsteps back on him as he followed the mock-marble corridors, searching for its curator who was no doubt prowling the exhibits like some kind of overgrown raven. It was mid-afternoon and everyone that wasn't at work or school had much more important things to do on a week day then revisit a history that wouldn't directly affect their day to day lives, there were only a handful of individuals in the vast number of rooms.

He found Isis in one of the rooms dedicated to ancient China, hovering over a waist-height display of scrolls written by one of the court members to god only knew whatever long dead Emperor. Bakura hardly cared.

She looked up at him from where she leaned over the glass, surveying his sudden appearance with the ever-present look of calmness, as if he had called ten minutes before telling her to expect him. Even without the Taulk she wasn't lost on the art of glimpsing snippets of the future, and even then, Isis wasn't stupid. She was a lot of things, yes, but not stupid. She had to know why he had come.

There was a long pause. Bakura kept waiting for her to speak.

Finally she sighed and, straightening up, asked, "What brings you here at such a late hour?"

Bakura knew she wasn't talking about the hours in the day, "Take a wild guess."

She gave a small smile and turned her gaze to the side, contemplating a collection of swords hung on the wall, "The air of this city grows ever more uneasy, the Pharaoh's presence, no doubt, has upset some form of balance."

Bakura sneered at her, "You would have him destroy himself?"

She closed her eyes, "I would have him do what is best for the greatest number of people."

"He is not a hero anymore, all that ended a long while ago in case you didn't catch the message. He doesn't have to do anything for the 'greater good', there are no heroes for a world that doesn't need saving."

She turned her gaze to look at him closely, "This angers you?"

Bakura growled, "The world can stay as chaotically peaceful as it wants. But seeing the only man that has ever been able to best me reducing himself into that pathetic remnant of a shadow is humiliating."

"Your heart has grown with the absence of Shadows I see. How fitting."

Oh, how Bakura dearly wished that punching her would get him the reaction he wanted, "And where has yours gone, Isis?"

She shook her head sadly, "There is nothing to be done."

"Nothing to be done, or nothing you _want_ to do?"

"We cannot run barrelling into every situation that even remotely involves us."

"You say 'us' as if we do it all the time. Get off your high horse, this involves us more than remotely!" He had crossed the gap between them and taken hold of her arm in a painfully harsh grip.

"How so? This battle belongs to the two of them."

"Because we are the only ones that see it, that feels the 'others' slipping just under the real, corporeal world. The only ones that can help them communicate with the living!"

"And why haven't you helped them? You cannot come raging into my place of work to accuse me of the negligence you have displayed yourself." She yanked her arm away and took a defensive step backwards.

"I didn't interfere because I thought you would have the brains to. I didn't give them credit, either, for how incredibly slow they are at realising the most obvious things."

A stalemate ensued, neither of them relenting their side of the argument.

Bakura wasn't about to lose though, "So you are perfectly willing to sit back and watch a perfectly innocent boy lose what he has fought desperately for, for the past three years? You want to live with the knowledge that they closed the gates on him when he could have entered, if you had only just spoken a few words to his friends? You want to feel his longing for the rest of your life as if it were your own?"

He waited for her reply, knowing, when her lips tightened and her eyes flickered away, that he had won.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" She spoke tightly, as if unsure she was doing the right thing, but Bakura could see through that to the irritation she felt at simply being overruled in morals by a thief.

"Come with me. We're making a little visit to a certain rag-tag group of ex-heroes."

* * *

"What are we going to do with him?" Anzu asked, watching Jounouchi pace across her living room.

"We have to help him." Ryou spoke up, anxiously looking up at the ceiling, as if he could see through it to the room where the Pharaoh had been hiding since yesterday.

"He's going mad, seeing Yuugi everywhere." Jounouchi spoke with a strained voice; he was worried, and a little freighted.

"But… we saw him too, it wasn't right of us to ignore what happened with the television." Ryou tried to reason, guilt nibbling at the back of his mind.

Jounouchi turned in the middle of the room to send a frustrated glance at Ryou, "What else can we do? There's nothing left of the Shadow magic in the world, there was no reasonable explanation to it. We can't get ourselves into this shit anymore."

"We've had our turn to save the world, I don't think there's anything more we can do." Anzu whispered, turning her gaze to her hands as she wrung the fabric of her skirt.

"But accept that the Pharaoh isn't of his right mind anymore. The loss of Yuugi unhinged him, we all saw that." Jounouchi was desperately trying to reason things away, more for his own peace of mind than anyone else's.

Anzu sighed, "Then what do you suggest we do when it's obvious he can't move on without Yuugi?"

Ryou spoke up again, "I don't know… Bakura said something along those lines just before but he didn't give details. He never gives details."

Anzu watched him concernedly, "You mentioned Bakura before, Ryou. What has he done now?"

"Nothing… or at least nothing that would harm me. He's just… speaking in riddles again. Saying what we need to know is right there but we're too stubborn to see it."

"… You think it had something to do with the Pharaoh?"

"Yes," Ryou paused, as if unsure if he should voice his next thought, eventually he said, "Just… just because there is no Shadow magic left in the world doesn't… I mean that doesn't mean that there is no magic at all. Does it?"

Anzu and Jounouchi watched him, waiting for Ryou to elaborate a little more. When he said nothing they looked at each other, wondering what they should think about this. About all of this.

Eventually Jounouchi said, "There's… there's still nothing we can do about it. We can't use magic."

"I know" Ryou said, "I'm just wondering if we really should, you know, dismiss the idea of there being some truth behind what the Pharaoh says and sees. Perhaps Yuugi isn't… all gone."

There wasn't much either of the others could find to say to that.

* * *

The pieces slid together too easily to be normal.

It was as if they were all magnets designed to fit into one place and one alone, as if that magnetic pull drew them into the right place before Yami was even given the chance to think about where he was putting them. At first it had gone slowly, the pieces seemed reluctant, almost annoyed at being moved. As a result it had taken him hours to slot two pieces together. The strings pulling his fingers never stilled, though, and he kept at it. And eventually the warmth he had felt from them when he first touched them rekindled, as if the echo-like presence within had been gone for a while but returned now to help him again. As if there was a fractured soul inside, the presence seemed to flicker and fade now and then before coming back, like whatever the echo was, was incomplete and weak. When the pieces were warm, they fit together easily, but whenever they grew cold, whenever the echo of something that felt like the residue of Yuugi's presence faded, they refused to work with him and sat stubbornly in his numb fingers.

It could just be his imagination. He hoped not.

The echo that felt like Yuugi could be nothing more than the Puzzle holding onto what it remembered Yuugi felt like. It could have soaked up the emotions of its keeper, making an impression of them that was a part of Yuugi but not really Yuugi himself. A footprint in the sand is only an impression of the walker.

That was probably what this was, Yuugi's footprint in the sands of the Sennen Puzzle. That didn't stop Yami hoping it was more.

Everything ached; he was tired, stiff, ill and hungry. But all that mattered was completing the pyramid that had once been his tomb. The warmth now spread through his fingers freely, becoming almost hot as the Puzzle neared its completion.

Would this prove his sanity, or condemn him to certain madness?

The soft glow in the room was not only coming from the daylight filtering through the closed curtains anymore. Gold shimmers cast strange reflections and shadows on the painted walls, a kaleidoscope telling the Sennen myth. Reaching out, he sought for the next piece to slot into place, and hoped he would not have to look up to see the faint lights depicting shadowed renditions of his death as Atemu.

Yami fell still, his breath freezing in his lungs, and his eyes almost glassy. There was one piece left. One piece. The largest single section of the Puzzle, the one both he and Yuugi had looked at so many times when contemplating their future, the one Yuugi had fondled and stared at for hours while piecing the gold together for the first time.

Yami remembered the Shadows the Puzzle had contained, remembered the suffering he had experienced at their mercy, and wondered what would happen if they were released again. Would he be setting a soul free, like Yuugi had done for him, or would he only be disrupting the world again with Shadow's chaos?

Something gentle whispered words he couldn't hear, the strings tugged his fingertips.

Yami slid the final piece home.

* * *

**AN: **Well then, we are getting to places. Just very slowly. It'll all happen at once soon. One more chap then the epilogue and all shall be explained, promise. Now the next chapter isn't very far along right now but I won't leave it for too long so don't worry there won't be a huge hiatus like last time. Remember more reviews makes me write faster!

So Review!


	10. Chapter Nine

**AN: **Hi everyone! So sorry this is so late, and sorry for vanishing for the best part of three months. Uni has been Hell this year in so many ways (massive workload, housemate whom we'd been mates with all last year turned out to be a queen bitch, unable to get internet, the list goes on), and even after I'd finished this my Beta had too much work to do before she could focus on this. Anyway, I'm home for Christmas now, and hoping to get some writing done before I have to go back! So, enjoy this!

At last. Explanations Ahoy!

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Nine**

Nothing happened.

The golden shadows danced boldly on the walls, taunting him with macabre images and silhouettes of the past. The Shadows hissed in his ears like smoke rising from a fire of dry leaves, but he could not tell what they were saying. Taunting, comforting, arguing; they could be doing anything to him right now without his notice.

The completed Sennen Puzzle rested in his cupped palms and looked like nothing more than a hunk of gaudy jewellery, the golden house of power reduced to a sad little pendant. Yami felt his hands begin to tremble in a way they hadn't since he arrived in Domino as his final hope was torn from him with a set of rusted iron claws.

It hadn't worked. The Puzzle's warmth had cooled and the echo of a presence was gone. Nothing had happened, the strings tugging his fingers had been severed so he sat with the feeling that he was a puppet without a puppeteer to give it an impression of life. He had lived only that impression of life for so long now, and suddenly he found that he didn't have the strength even for that anymore.

He had fallen into the trap he had told himself to avoid. He had begun to hope when he knew he shouldn't. And he was paying for it now as his hands trembled where they lay in his lap and the chasm in his chest seemed to expand until it threatened to consume him entirely.

Shadowed figures danced on the wall. The warmth that had exited the Puzzle seemed to condense and grow stronger, not in his hands, but at his side, where the bed dropped off. The threadbare string that connected his head and neck to the puppeteer's control tugged weakly. Yami looked up.

A choked sound escaped his constricting throat, and suddenly Yami couldn't breathe.

* * *

Malik had been sat in his living room staring at nothing for quite some time now. The radio was on, but he clearly wasn't listening to either the music or the presenters. He just sat and stared at a painting on the wall, an exact replicate of the tomb paintings in Atemu's lost tomb, with a look of deep thought on his face.

This annoyed Mariku, who knew that his other half simply _had_ to be planning something evil to prank him with. Not to be outdone, Mariku had placed himself in the opposite chair and attempted to mimic Malik's thoughtful look by trying to think of something equally as evil to get him back with.

It wasn't going too well. Mariku knew that Isis would never let him bring ferrets into the house. He couldn't even hide them, that woman had a nose like a bloodhound. Mariku glared at Malik from across the room and tried not to blink, he'd have to psych Malik out while he thought of a plan. He was back to square one of 'How to scare one's Hikari shitless' without those ferrets. He should write a book.

Malik broke the staring contest he didn't even know he was in when the phone rang. Pulling himself reluctantly out of his suspicious thoughts, he crossed the room and picked up the receiver, frowning immediately when he heard his sister's voice.

"Malik?" Isis sounded impatient.

"Yeah?" he said slowly, "What is it?"

"Nothing much. I'm going to be late home, probably very late, and I need to you to make dinner. Rice is in the cupboard above the microwave, and there should be a jar of something next to the glasses cupboard, just put them together in a pan. You know how to boil rice, right?"

"Yes." Malik spoke, not really listening to the cooking instructions, "Why will you be late?"

"Curator stuff. Just make sure the rice is cooked before you add the sauce. Got to go, and don't burn the house down, Malik."

"Wait, Sister!" But the dial tone was his response. Malik's frown deepened.

Placing the handset back on its cradle, Malik contemplated his sister's brief conversation. What on earth was going on? This had proved his suspicions that something big was going on that he had not yet been made a part of. First Bakura, and now his own sister.

Change in her most ambiguous form was waving her hand over the city.

* * *

A wide smile stretched rouge lips in a display of simple and undulated joy, half-translucent eyes lowered in a saddened regret. A paradox of emotions played his features like a game, but the effect was both instantaneous and startling.

"Congratulations." Was the only word that passed his lightly trembling lips and escaped into a room filled with foggy shadows that clung to his body and blurred his outline.

And in return, Yami could only find enough voice for one word, "Yuugi."

The smile slipped into a melancholy curve, Yuugi tilted his head ever so slightly to the side as if to better contemplate the figure on the bed.

The trembling that always seemed to plague Yami's hands had spread, until his whole body was lightly shivering as if from cold. He barely breathed as he forced the next words from between his lips, "Are you real?"

A slight laugh animated Yuugi's face at the question, "I should hope so. I wouldn't want to be a figment of a madman's daydream."

A madman. That was what he was, Yami had known it for a long while, but this… this was real. His dry eyes itched with the sudden infusion of water, the world tilted dangerously until he was almost blind and sick, but despite this, Yami stood. Eventually the world righted itself and he was capable, with a number of deep breaths, of movement.

A dying man with the Sennen Puzzle clenched with vice-like hands, he stumbled to where Yuugi stood and let his knees buckle under him so that he knelt before the apparition of the reason he was still here, panting to try and regain the surprising amount of energy that small amount of movement had stolen. When he could, he looked up at Yuugi's beautiful face and felt his chest constrict with the reminder of all the small and large memories Yuugi had given him.

Then, Yuugi answered his question for him, "I do not know exactly how. But in the last seconds I was still alive, the Puzzle helped me achieve something in its perverse and obscure way," he lifted an almost see-through hand and gazed at the palm, "In doing so it both empowered and hopelessly weakened me. It split my soul into three rough parts."

Yami listened intently, there were questions burning on his tongue but his heart would not listen, instead he settled for letting his gaze wander over the ghostly image of his partner. It was exactly as he remembered.

"I'm sorry." Abruptly, the words spilled from his mouth, Yuugi looked down at him in curious confusion, "I gave up. I didn't consider that you could still be here, trapped. I never thought that perhaps you hadn't left this world; I was too consumed in selfish mourning. If I had stayed, none of this would have gotten so out of control, would it?"

With a pained look of adoration, Yuugi knelt before him on shadow-obscured knees, "Mou hitori no boku…"

"No, I'm right. You've been here, alone and waiting ever since I left. I was an idiot. But without you… without you I couldn't cope. I was nothing, and you weren't there to help make me something."

Yuugi let a small, sad smile pull at his lips, reaching up to touch Yami's cheeks even though both knew it was impossible, the translucent hands would just pass through Yami's skin without any resistance, "But I've been with you all this time. Ever since Kyushu, when the things in your apartment moved and your phone had that static message left on it. It was all me, trying to get to you. Trying to make you realise I was still here, needing you. But I was too weak and all I could manage were those cryptic little things that made you think you were going mad. I'm sorry for that, so sorry."

Yami was silent for a moment, overcome with the sudden emotion triggered by learning Yuugi had never left him, and he had been too stupid, too blind, to see it. All this time.

"The graveyard…" he whispered, "The shop."

Yuugi nodded once, slowly, "Me, my other, in the moments I was strong enough to reach you."

The question didn't matter anymore, but just to hear Yuugi's voice in his ears he asked, "How?"

Tears stung Yuugi's eyes as he spoke a desperate, "Forgive me! I never meant to tease you like that, to tear us apart after reuniting us, but it was the only way I could find to get us to this point. When the puzzle tore my soul apart, it sealed a third of me within its maze. Yami, I would have come so much sooner, but being so disjointed, my thoughts and awareness fluctuated so wildly I could barely concentrate at all. Seeing your world was like looking up at the sky from below water." He paused to draw a fake breath, for ghosts could not breathe, and dropped his gaze to the Puzzle in Yami's hands, "Aside from the part of me that the Puzzle kept, another part was chained to the hill and the oak where you scattered my ashes, and the final part chained itself to you. Wherever you went, I was there, at least in part.

"I refused to move on, to die, to be in a place where you were not. I suppose I did this to myself. Alone, the portions of my soul were too weak to leave this world. Thus, when you visited my grave, two parts of my soul reunited and could visually manifest, at least for a little while. The same with the shop, except, since I had the Puzzle's help, I was much stronger there."

Yami tried to make his drowning mind make sense of Yuugi's words, "Then, you are complete now?"

Yuugi shook his head; "A part of me is still chained to my grave, when you left the hill it stayed there."

While Yuugi spoke, Yami noticed but thought nothing of the glance Yuugi gave the door, as if seeing through the wood into the house behind, even though his Hikari's eyes slid to narrow slits and his gentle mouth moved into an expression that could have been sinister. He thought nothing of what he thought were the sounds of other voices raised in some emotion that he couldn't pinpoint, because Yuugi's gaze was back on him in a moment with a look that contained all the love in the world, and that was all his mind and heart had room for.

Yami asked in a small voice, "What must I do?"

Yuugi's eyes darkened and narrowed strangely when he whispered, "Follow me."

* * *

Jounouchi cupped the hot porcelain in his hands, slowly rotating the coffee cup, watching the dark liquid shift and swirl and letting the heat seep into his palms. Conversation had lulled to a stop a while ago, but it wasn't exactly an awkward silence, Anzu had gotten them all hot drinks to keep them awake while they thought, even if the thinking was entirely to themselves.

Bitterly, Jounouchi almost cursed Yami for coming back. Life had been fine without him, everything had been running smoothly and normally, it may have been a little dull at times compared to all of their old adventures, and it may have been miserable at times when he remembered that his best friend was no longer there. But it was a life, and he had made it for himself. Only for an ex-king to stumble into it and confuse everything they had done to try and move on.

No one could live while constantly mourning as if each day the same grief was fresh and new. Even if the pain never went, it would have to lessen, it would have to take a backseat, because at the end of the day you were still here, and you had to find a way to give your own life a front seat. Yami had never learnt how to do that, and they could all see it.

His grief was killing him.

Jounouchi smiled grimly, it was a miracle he had lasted long enough for them to see him again, really.

Jounouchi took a gulp of the strong caffeine, letting the taste roll luxuriously over his tongue before swallowing. Just what exactly was that man doing in that bedroom? Most likely, he was manically trying to fit the pieces of the Puzzle back together, deliriously and obsessively believing that alone would bring Yuugi back to life. It wouldn't work. And even if it did, it took Yuugi eight years to complete that thing.

Jounouchi doubted the Pharaoh would last another eight days.

He closed his eyes against a stab of grief and hoped that, in the next life, Yuugi wouldn't hate him for not being able to do more for his partner. They had tried helping Yami, but he was having none of it, and he doubted that admitting him to a psychiatric ward would help. It would probably do more damage to the ward.

Then, as Jounouchi was smiling in grim humour at the image of Yami in a white hospital gown with no back to it, some strange and gentle feeling echoed down from upstairs. It was one of those inexplicable sensations that was often as confusing as it was reassuring. A light warmth suffused around his heavy shoulders and familiar affection tingled in his chest.

He looked up towards the ceiling, seeing Ryou do the same as Anzu paused in what she had been doing. They didn't move for what seemed like forever, staring where their eyes had fixed and trying to make sense of what they were feeling.

Trying to ignore what it reminded them of. Trying to block out the sudden memories as clear as yesterday and ignore that rush in their hearts that was hope mingled with disbelief.

Unspoken between them, they ignored the question on all of their tongues: what had the broken Puzzle, if Yami finished it, contained?

Suddenly, with a loud crack that had to be the sound of the lock breaking, and with a resounding bang as the wood bounced back from the wall it was thrown against, the front door of the house burst open. It broke the spell of still silence and discarded its shattered remains carelessly into a bed of disarray and uncertainty.

The sound was so loud and unwelcome that the shock caused Jounouchi to leap from his chair, sending the full mug of coffee spilling to the carpet. Anzu leapt up, and with a moment's hesitation, sprang forward to see who had forced their way into her home. She didn't get far, only just reaching the threshold into the hall when the two intruders burst through into the living room.

"Bakura!" Ryou shouted, disbelieving, as Anzu staggered back from the push Bakura had given her. And, an even bigger source for Ryou's incredulity was who appeared behind Bakura with a mixture of a displeased scowl and worried turn of the lips, Isis.

"Where is he?" Isis asked quickly. No sooner had the words left her than a thump and another subtle wave of warmth floated down from upstairs, and without so much as an explanation, Bakura turned and began dragging Isis down the hall towards the stairs by a bruising grip on her arm.

"Hey! Wait!" Anzu shouted, rushing to follow, the other two behind her she continued, "What are you doing? Breaking into my – "

Her words were cut short. Bakura had taken the first stair, but as his foot had touched it a violent heat blasted like wind down the staircase, as if pushing them back.

"He _is_ here." Isis said, as if half surprised. Bakura's sharp mouth twitched in a victorious sneer. The hot air swarmed like angry wasps, warning, hissing danger.

"What's going on?" Anzu was half hysterical as the glass in numerous photos hung on the wall cracked.

Ignoring the blatant warnings, Bakura began running up the stairs, taking them two at a time. With what little else they could do, the rest followed him. Ryou, at the back of the group, glanced behind when a slight sound caught his attention, and swearing when he saw the small hall table being eaten by bright yellow flames. Turning to yell to Bakura to stop, he didn't have a chance to get the words out, because Bakura had reached the top stair, and in reaction the wooden banister that ran the length of the staircase erupted in similar flames. Like a snake, the fire had run down from the top to the bottom and now lay writhing before them. Anzu shrieked, throwing herself back from the fire and into the wall. Jounouchi swore as he did the same.

"If you're that scared then get out! I don't have time to babysit!" Bakura's growling shout came from above, unimpeded by the heat and terror.

He began down the landing where at the end Yami's closed and locked door sat innocently. The glass of picture frames hung on the wall exploded as he passed, throwing glass shards over him and forcing him to stagger away and cover his face. They nicked his skin and shredded parts of his clothes, but gritting his teeth, he carried on. The violently swirling air and the sound and heat from the fires being lit all around him was joined by the mutterings and distant laughter of strange and sinister things, words and warnings he couldn't understand from voices that sounded half-familiar.

He was nearly there now, the journey from the staircase to the end room felt like a trek across the desert. But as he drew close, something much larger drew itself into existence, blocking his way. A tall plume of red fire gathered before the door and while the carpet and wallpaper caught and blazed around it, it condensed into a vague, but recognisable shape.

Gasps and exclamations of shock from behind him alerted Bakura to the knowledge that the others had followed him after all. He stood his ground against the distorting flame-made figure of a young man with narrowed eyes.

"Yuugi." Isis said breathlessly, her voice laced with fear, "What are you doing? Stop this."

"Let us pass!" Bakura shouted with much greater authority.

The thing's almost-mouth smiled strangely at him, then its body dissolved into shapeless fire that left the door burning, its paint peeling and blistering. The house groaned and creaked under the assault of the spreading blaze.

With the snarl of a trapped wolf, Bakura balanced himself and with one mighty kick, managed to break the door to Yami's room open. Flames roared and licked around them, more bursting forth from the now open room. Arms held up to protect his face from the flames, Bakura staggered out of the blazing hallway and into the room.

The bed, the cabinet, the wardrobe were all on fire. And between a pair of blazing curtains, an open window stood gaping. Nothing was here other than fire. No spirit, no Puzzle, no ex-Pharaoh.

Only them; now trapped in a house being rapidly eaten by flames, and an open second floor window.

* * *

**AN:** Right, well I am desperately hoping that Yuugi's explanation made some sense, 'coz I don't think I handled that scene particularly well, or at least as well as it should have been handled. Well anyway, if anyone is confused then just ask because I know it wasn't quite how I envisioned it in my head.

Penultimate chapter this is everybody! Which means that with the next chapter PA will finally be finished! Wow, that took a lot longer than I planned.

Review Please!


	11. Chapter Ten

**AN: **Sorry for the long wait, as usual. Phoenix's Ashes was never a very motivated story, was it? Well it's here now, after what feels like a decade of writing it. A long journey this has been and I must say I am rather happy with this chapter, for once.

For the final scene I actually have I song picked out, though I doubt many people will have it. It's from the _Death Note Original Soundtrac_k by Taniuchi Hideki, called _Misa No Theme B_. If you do have it, play it my dears! But wait until Jounouchi offers to call Seto, because my Beta says it works best from that point. This song is half the reason the last scene was written, so love it!

**Phoenix's Ashes**

**Chapter Ten**

_"What are you doing?"_

_A small boy stood in a room of black and purple mists, shadows that lived and thought and hungered._

'_receiving our payment'_

"_For what? I do not remember us agreeing on any sort of deal."_

_Their voices blended, mixed, whispers thousands of voices strong turned to hushed shouts. The boy was defiant._

'_we give what you want we take what we desire the trade is simple'_

"_No, you do not get to do this, you cannot take lives for a simple favour."_

'_you would stop us child but how you are one with barely half a soul and we are many'_

_Their questions, their laughter, their words almost blended together. His pale skin was like a beacon in the black fog._

"_Why are you doing this?"_

'_for our payment and because you desired it'_

"_I desired? No. Liars! I wanted company but not at this price!"_

'_we do not lie child we hide and trick but we do not lie you wanted this deep in your fractured soul you wanted them all to feel what you have felt'_

_The boy paused in fear to consider their truthful words, now he was better, now he could think more clearly, he asked: "Then how do I save them?"_

_They laughed, 'you cannot'_

"_No, if this is my fault I want to fix it, I know you are fond of wagers, tell me how they could be saved?"_

_They were silent._

_The boy smiled, "Then you will agree to a game. What would happen if they escaped before you could devour them?"_

_A pause. 'if our old Master can reach the place you lead him too if you can persuade him to do what he must do we will let them live but only if they can escape the flames on their own otherwise they are ours'_

_It was the best he could do. "Thank you."_

'_and if the old Master does not agree' they paused to wrap silken mist around his fingers, caressing his cheeks like lovers, 'we keep you here with us'_

_The boy closed his eyes to mask a moment of fear, placing a desperate hope and trust onto the 'old Master' to forgive him for what he was about to agree to, "Yes. You may keep me, and all the others, if he fails."_

_They were satisfied._

* * *

Yami's foot caught on a cracked gravestone, he stumbled, but did not fall. Lungs burning and heart thumping desperately, he continued to run. His feet thumped against grass and gravel in an uneven rhythm; the running, stumbling steps of a madman chasing a fever induced illusion of heaven. Heavy clouds lumbered over the graveyard, cracks between them threatening to break open and let a ladder of light shine through.

The completed Sennen Puzzle clutched in his clammy hand, Yami didn't pause once in his all out sprint. Yuugi's partial soul kept flickering a few steps in front, a ghostly apparition urging him onwards, a half-voice encouraging him to move faster. He had thrown himself at the cemetery gates, forcing the wrought iron back on its well-oiled hinges to crash against the wall.

He reached the incline of the hill, weaving clumsily through other gravestones, his burning eyes fixed on the little off-white grave leaning against the old oak.

That destination meant Yuugi. Yuugi alive and real and touching and holding him. Yuugi. If he could reach it everything would be perfect again and Yuugi would be with him, loving him. Just a little further.

Yami stumbled to a stop, coughing and gasping for air. His head swam, his vision flickered with small dots swarming at the edges, and his legs and shoulders shook violently. He had reached the top.

A small white flame hovered above the grave. Yuugi's soul fizzled and melted, vanishing into the air. A pair of tiny flames, as white as the first, burned on either side of him for an uncertain moment. Then they were sucked towards the other, all of them converging together in a ball of light that momentarily blinded him.

In the blink of an eye, the light was gone.

Yami's lungs struggled to expand with the burning in his throat and the tightness in his ribs. In confusion, he glanced around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"Yuu – gi?" he coughed, confused, pleading, desperate.

A blast of heat, wind, and light so strong he was forced to lift his arms to protect his eyes. Yami gritted his teeth, screwing his eyes tightly shut. A grunt left him as under the onslaught of brightness he was forced to take a couple of staggering steps backward. A gentle sigh, like a spring breeze, ghosted over his skin. The sound of burning wood reached his ears. Hesitantly, Yami lowered his arms, cracking open his eyes. He gaped.

The entire oak was alight with fierce orange flames. It licked at the leaves and lifted in towering plumes from the branches, making a great pyre out of the gnarled old trunk. The fire lifted high into the sky, greedily feeding off the oxygen in the air.

But the tree itself remained entirely unharmed. Each leaf was intact, and every inch of bark remained clean and un-burnt.

The blood in Yami's veins seemed to be growing ever more sluggish, despite the furious beating of his heart. He didn't even notice the world around them becoming darker, until, despite the daytime sun, it was as dark as a moonless night.

Yet he only had eyes for the small figure materialising out of the fire. A boy made of flames with a face as beautiful as the boy in Yami's memories.

Yuugi smiled at him, and lifted open palms, proffering his hands to Yami as if in invitation.

* * *

Bakura turned to look behind him, "Out! Everyone out!"

His shout was only just heard over the dangerous groaning of the house, it's very foundations seeming to buckle under the strain as the roof and ceilings began to bow and crack.

Anzu screamed as, with an almighty wrench and crash, a beam holding up the attic gave way and collapsed onto the stairs, crushing their only way out under tonnes of burning wood. She clung to Jounouchi in desperate fear, tears and soot clogging their noses and eyes.

Bakura swore violently. He gabbed Isis' arm and hurled her in front of him, directing her towards the open window. She stumbled and gripped the frame uncertainly.

"It's too high! Bakura, we can't jump, it could kill us!"

"Better a chance by jumping than certain death by staying here!" He bellowed over, pushing Anzu and Jounouchi towards her.

Swallowing heavily, the dirty air making black soup out of the saliva in their mouths, she nodded. Staying here would mean death no matter what they did; jumping may result in a few broken bones, but they would be alive.

"I'll go first," Jounouchi volunteered, and before anyone could stop him, he had pushed himself through the open window and was inching out feet first, clutching onto the windowsill to lessen how far he would have to fall.

As the other's followed, Ryou was jerked suddenly to the side just in time to avoid a large clump of plaster falling on him. Coughing and trembling, Ryou clutched onto Bakura's shirt, wondering how on earth they had gotten into this mess.

"Bakura," he looked up into the other's scowling, dirty face, "How did you know," a cough, "How did…?"

A kiss silenced him. Ryou felt their dry, chapped lips burn lightly at the contact. As Anzu slipped down to the ground floor after Isis, Bakura broke the contact and moved them towards the window.

Ryou knew then that he wasn't going to get an answer, not yet at least.

Bakura helped him ease feet first out of the widow, clutching his pale hand in a sweaty grip. The heat was now almost unbearable, Ryou kept wincing as the blistering temperature seemed to want to peal away every layer of skin he had. Bakura's face was a mask of stone, not allowing himself to display discomfort in the face of such emergency. Ryou looked up at him when the time came to let go, fear shadowing his eyes, the shadows of the fire behind Bakura were beginning to look like greedy hands, determined to have at least one of them.

"You'll be fine," the simple assurance carried so clearly over the noise, Ryou felt an unreasonable amount of courage swell within him. He let go of the sill and Bakura's hand.

The ground rushed up to him with a sudden thump, a tremor ran through him from the shock of the impact, and he fell backwards onto his back on the damp ground. The air sucked from his body, and his very bones hurting, Ryou only just managed to roll onto his side and struggle to his feet in time to see Bakura's shadow loom out of the window.

Outside, safe, where the dim daytime sky seemed a bright paradise, they coughed and wheezed and thanked whatever deity was watching over them that they were alive.

"Everyone," Anzu's voice, made husky and dry by the soot in her throat, was interrupted by a fit of hacking, "Everyone alright?"

Jounouchi grunted painfully, leaning to one side to take the weight off a bruised ankle. But despite the few bruises and cuts, everyone was surprisingly whole. Ryou helped Bakura to his feet again, shaking from the adrenaline and shock.

"Wha-what now?" he gasped, looking at the others.

As soon as the words had left his mouth, a dark hissing sound came from behind him. Anzu gasped sharply, Isis followed in silence, her gaze grew knowing. Turning quickly, Ryou's mouth fell open.

Anzu's house stood intact and perfect. No evidence that there had ever been a fire remaining on the clean white paint or perfectly intact roof.

"What the…?" Jounouchi trailed off in disbelief.

Bakura's scowl looked etched into stone, he turned to Isis and nodded.

She sighed as if in pain, "We have to find him."

* * *

Sugaroku let out a long sigh. Leaning heavily on his cane, his timeworn eyes roved over the ruin of his old shop. In the centre of the filthy shop floor, the dirt and leaves seemed to have been disturbed, scuff marks and gouges had scraped away the muck, almost revealing the burnt and cracked tiles that had once made up the floor of the clean home.

But something was much more important than a few scuffmarks.

He could _feel_ the difference here. Something so very familiar that had once hung over the remains, weaved into them with its undeniable existence, had gone. Whatever it was that had felt like his grandson and old magic had vanished. Whoever had been here had taken it with them

Sugaroku had a good idea as to who.

A small smile pulled at the corners of his lips. Perhaps whatever Yuugi had needed to do had at last been accomplished. He could still feel the disturbance in the city, it felt like the epicentre of an earthquake that hadn't yet hit. If this meant what he thought it meant, then it would soon be time to, at last, sell this dismal plot of ruined land to someone who could make something of it. Someone who could make the memory of all the misery that had once been here fade away.

Sugaroku blinked heavily, turning towards the distant mountains that flanked the city on one side. Wasn't the graveyard over there? A mysterious light was radiating in the distance, tiny but bright against an obscurely dark backdrop.

Sugaroku took a deep breath, and closed his eyes in a prayer.

* * *

The city was vibrating with tension. Or perhaps it was simply their hearts, tripping in contained fear and confusion. The streets were deserted. Autumn leaves shuffled lazily over the grey pavements in the cool breeze, sometimes lifting in a swirl of wind, dancing dizzily around each other before settling back on the ground. Like ghost children were running through them, and throwing them up to watch them fall.

The city should not be this quiet. The lack of visible life was more terrifying than the burning house. Empty windows watched them with lidless eyes, and though they could hear cars in the distance, none passed them by.

They jogged. Running was impossible with Jounouchi's bruised ankle and Bakura's back, aching from the fall and slightly burnt from the fire.

"I don't understand, Isis," Anzu said between sharp breaths, trying to make some sort of conversation over the sounds of their own footsteps, "My house was on… it was on fire. And then it wasn't! What the hell is going on?"

Isis looked over at her as they jogged, quickly gauging the panic in Anzu's eyes and weighing it with how much information she could pass on to lift that at least a little.

"The Shadows are," she paused for breath and time, "Restless. They dislike having been sealed away. They seem to have found an escape route through Yuugi's death."

"An escape route? Is Yuugi still here?!" Anzu was becoming frustrated with the lack of straight answers, her best friend's partner was in danger and all they were given was vague statements that were a poor replacement for any solid proof.

"Yuugi… I don't know," She answered truthfully, "The Shadows may have kept his spirit, using it as a catalyst for their power and escape, but I do not know if it is him or not. It could just as easily be another illusion, the Shadows remembering their half-master and using a replica of him to lure the Pharaoh in."

"I do not know what they want with him, but we are rushing for a reason," Isis clarified when Anzu opened her mouth with another question.

Anzu frowned, recognising the tone. Isis would not answer anything else. Anzu dropped back a little to help Jounouchi, who was struggling with his ankle, stubbornly refusing to ask for help. He grunted a reluctant thanks when she pulled his arm over her shoulders, allowing him to take some of the weight off his ankle. Anzu glanced quickly behind her, seeing Ryou and Bakura not far behind. There was no point even attempting to ask Bakura what was happening, not even Ryou was likely to be able to get that information from him. They would have to wait.

She hoped, somehow, that they would all come out of this healthy. The Pharaoh included.

Ryou looked up at the tall buildings as they made their painfully slow progress across the city, empty skyscrapers towered above them. Creating a maze of post-apocalyptic emptiness that sent chills down his spine and made his heart trip with fear. The hairs on the back of his neck rose whenever a cool wind blew by, the air bringing with it an obscure sense of distant magic. When he breathed, it tasted the same as the air in the old Pharaoh's tomb.

"Where are we going?" Ryou asked, desperate to break the silence, "I don't know how much further Jounouchi can go."

"The graveyard," was Bakura's blunt answer, "The disturbance is coming from there. That is where the helpless idiot has gone."

Ryou didn't have to ask who Bakura meant. They kept jogging; they weren't far from the graveyard, thankfully. The steep slopes of their destination were already looming before them.

When at last they reached the gates leading into the graveyard, they found them open and swinging lightly on their hinges in the wind.

"Look," Bakura said, leading Ryou's gaze upwards to the hill where they had scattered Yuugi's ashes so many years ago.

There was an unnatural gathering of darkness sticking to the old oak through which they could only glimpse indistinct outlines of its branches. It was like a dome of night without the stars to break up the darkness.

Just as they moved forward passed the gates, wordlessly agreeing that they needed to reach that black hill, a massive pulse of energy engulfed the area like a shockwave. Ryou closed his eyes desperately against the mysterious force, his hand somehow finding Bakura's and clutching it as he waited helplessly for the energy to pass by. It scrambled their senses and robbed them of clear thought, for a moment, Ryou thought he was drunk.

Then it subsided a little, and Ryou cracked open his eyes to see the previously half-hidden oak engulfed in fire.

* * *

"_Yami_," Yuugi said, his voice echoed and muffled strangely, "_You made it. Now come, please_."

Yuugi offered his hands, the gesture open and welcoming. Promising paradise.

Yami wavered uncertainly. Something didn't feel right inside him, his body seemed to be fighting itself. He had no energy, no strength left. And here was Yuugi. His perfect, dead Yuugi talking cryptically like an angel with a tongue of flame.

His dry mouth formed words, but Yami didn't know what it was he said.

Yuugi shook his head slowly, "_This is your chance Yami. Our chance. After this there's either Heaven or Hell, depending on your choice. You are about to die, my other, take my hand. Death is nothing to be afraid of if you are not alone_."

"Death?" He was about to die? But how? Why?

His heart strained in his chest, fighting like a wild bird against the bars of its cage.

Yami stretched out his arm; opening his palm he held his hand over Yuugi's flaming one. He could feel the heat radiating off Yuugi. The air around him shook and waved violently in reaction to the high temperature, the heat from Yuugi's hand alone felt like it was blistering the skin of his fingers.

Unsure and confused, he raised his gaze to Yuugi's face. His aibou smiled lovingly, his eyes imploring, begging, almost desperate. Yami's hand hovered, trembling slightly. Just a little lower and he would grasp that flaming shape, just a little more and something (though he was not sure what) would change forever.

"_Please, my other. Just one last favour. And after that no more pain, nothing but bliss. I promise_." Yuugi's voice was strange, as if he were speaking from behind a thick curtain.

Who was he to deny Yuugi anything?

The Sennen Puzzle slipped from his clammy hand and fell to the floor with a dull thump.

Yami took Yuugi's hand. He took a sharp breath as hot pinpricks grew and spread from his fingers, down his arm into his shoulder. As if they were tugging at him, pulling him in a direction his body could not go. The tingles began to grow painful, little needlepoints spilling into his chest and constricting his heart. It was suddenly impossible to breathe. As the pinpricks flowed down past his abdomen, into his thighs, Yami fought the instinct to struggle.

"Yu-Yuugi," he gasped, "Wha-what…?"

"_Shhh_," the flaming ghost replied soothingly, "_It'll be alright. Just let go, Yami_."

Yuugi's voice, as cool and gentle as water on his burning, suffocating body, calmed him. As the pain reached his feet and shot up through his neck to drown his brain, Yami pushed himself forward, stepping up to Yuugi.

As he took that step, fire flared forcefully down his arm and a heavy weight fell from him. Distantly, he heard it crumple to the damp grass below, but it was unimportant now, whatever it had been. A huge sense of lightness filled him, he could breathe again, energy and life threatened to overwhelm his senses in an ecstasy of brilliance. He opened his eyes, unsure of when he had closed them, and found Yuugi clutched to his chest, as solid and real as he had ever been alive. It took him a moment to notice that his own body was burning just as Yuugi's was, his form comprised of radiant flames that twisted and weaved affectionately, obsessively, around the flames Yuugi gave off.

The impossibility of it, however, didn't even cross Yami's mind. He felt too good, this moment felt too right. His heart came close to bursting when Yuugi looked up at him, their arms around each other, their heated bodies pressed together, there was so much love in that look that Yami could have happily drowned in it. Then Yuugi claimed his lips, his heart, his mind, all of him, in a kiss so simple it was perfect. The kiss, simply a light brush and press of their lips, forced a whimper from his throat. He had been starved of happiness so long, and suddenly, in his arms, he had the whole world.

Yami pulled Yuugi's mouth back when it seemed in danger of moving away, the fire that made their forms melding, uniting like starved lovers, desperate for each other after an eternity of separation.

In his mind, Yami at last heard Yuugi's voice again, resonating deliciously through his soul, and he knew this intimate link was the only way he ever wanted to speak again.

"_Heaven is at last on our side, it seems,_" Yuugi laughed like a silver nightingale, "_I love you, my other. Forgive me for not telling you sooner_."

Yami wanted to cry in his joyful elation, "_Forgiveness is something you have never had to ask me for, Aibou_," he did not need to tell Yuugi he loved him, because he could not find the adequate words for the enraptured nature of his love drenched heart. Yuugi could feel it all through the link between their souls. Yami felt Yuugi shudder in his arms under the delicious, addictive sensation.

With a sigh that sounded like pure sated passion, Yuugi clung to him and whispered, "_Can we go home now?_"

Yami smiled, "_Please_."

Around them, the city blew away like sand and dust.

* * *

Ryou felt his head spin. The world was dark, deliciously dark and pleasantly cool. He smiled lightly as a gentle current of air drifted with him over the vast plane of contended nothingness. There was something that they were supposed to be doing; he could dimly remember them rushing somewhere, desperate to reach something before anything happened. But the memory was distant and unimportant. Nothing mattered right now.

Around him, similar minds drifted lazily, familiar ones that he would have greeted had he not been so wonderfully content and sleepy. Warmth drifted from somewhere near, coercing them to come to it. They answered the welcome languidly, smiling lightly, turning like flowers towards the sun.

A soft laugh and a deep sigh brushed their ears. A warm sensation flowed from a larger source of heat, drifting by them playfully on its way, a life-filled presence that felt like numerous minds rolling together in harmony. Affection and something like gratitude caressed them.

And then it was gone.

Ryou blinked. And found himself stood in a sun drenched graveyard.

The group, even Bakura, stood perfectly still for a long moment. An innate sense of uncertainty and loss confusing them. What where they doing? Why were they here?

"What… happened?" Ryou's voice was a startling reminder of the world around them, that they were still stood here, in a graveyard, not a floating consciousness somewhere upon the vast planes of thought.

Taking deep breaths, sharp and cool and strange against the heat they thought they had felt, they blinked to clear their vision of shadowy impressions. The graveyard was the same; the sky was a blue-grey covered with patchy clouds, Jacob's Ladders dappling the green ground as moving pools of light, the great oak's leaves rustled peacefully, a bird chirruped to its mate.

There was no sign of any disturbance, nothing out of the ordinary that would explain the surge of surreal magic they had felt even from the graveyard's gate. The oak stood intact, the grass undisturbed, and a natural stillness prevailed for what felt like miles around.

Then they felt it. The city, their home, had returned to normal. So long had they been under some strange sense of tension that they had neglected to notice it. Since Yuugi's death, they had trooped and moped through everyday life believing this to be the future adulthood had brought them. And now, at last, they felt themselves again. The air was free to be breathed; their eyes were clear to see.

Yuugi's restless spirit. The Pharaoh's madness. Both were gone.

What remained was the sense of feeling whole again, as if someone had cut a chain tethering their hearts to some duty bound cause. And now the rest of their lives seemed to stand before them in a way it never had before.

It was only long minutes later that they noticed the body.

Jounouchi broke the calm with a vicious curse; Anzu was already running and halfway there. Together they crowded round the motionless form and waited with mounting dread as Anzu fell to her knees and placed her trembling fingers to pulse points and open lips were breath should have moved.

She looked up, eternal moments of frantic searching proved fruitless, tears flooding her cheeks, and spoke, "He's dead."

Yami, curled upon his side in a loose foetal position, the Puzzle clutched in one hand like a life-line, closed eyes turned towards the sky, and a look of ecstasy induced delirium etched into his face, froze them again into staring.

"The king is dead." Ryou mouthed the words of a voice he could barely remember, echoing from some past point.

The numbness that accompanied the realisation was complete, and despite the sudden revelation of freedom that still beckoned them forward they paused and knew that from this moment there was no turning back. From this point their old lives lived in photos and nothing more.

"How? How could he just suddenly… why is he dead?!" Anzu's question ended on a shrill note, having lost her best friend, she had not wanted to lose his last link to them so soon. Her hands trembled as grief spilled in liquid form from her eyes.

Jounouchi could not quite bare to meet anyone's eye, his fists clenched in misplaced anger towards his friend who seemed to have left them so easily and so carelessly.

"He succumbed to fever." A clear voice sliced through the atmosphere with calm sincerity.

Three gazes of varying emotions found Isis stood where she had stopped just a few paces away, her hands clasped almost prayer-like before her. Bakura, many more paces behind her, stood silent, his arms crossed and a suggestion of a glare narrowing his eyes that were fixed on the sky over the city below.

"A fever?" Anzu asked, disbelieving sorrow lilting her voice.

"You said yourself, he had been out in that storm, he had eaten barely anything for days, and locked himself up in a room without even water to drink. He came back from the Game Shop raving. Anzu, he must have been a very sick man by the time he came here."

"Are you blaming us for this? Our neglect is why he died?" Jounouchi's angry voice sounded around the gravestones, his eyes alight with grieving fury.

"No." Isis said simply, "It is not your fault."

"I… I suppose," Ryou said with a watery, forced smile, Bakura's gaze flickered to him for a moment, "He got what he wanted, didn't he? Yami didn't… he didn't want to…" he couldn't say the word, "Not without Yuugi. He wasn't living a life without Yuugi."

"Death is the ultimate escape," Isis agreed. Jounouchi wished he could hurt her for her calm lack of visible grief. She was grieving, he knew, for both of them, but her quiet way of holding it back made his blood boil.

For a long while they all stood there in silence, listening to the wind and the birds. The world was embracing the loss, and rolled on gratefully. No grand mourning ceremony, no extravagant exclamations of woe erupted. It was almost as if nothing had happened.

At length, Anzu loosened her grip on the now icy hand and let it rest with the other on the grass, in her heart of hearts she hadn't stopped looking for a pulse in that wrist for the whole time she knelt there. It wasn't until now that she truly believed the Pharaoh was dead.

Standing, and still crying, she looked at the other two with a weak laugh, "I suppose we should tell the authorities we found a body, huh?"

Jounouchi shook his head, "I'll call Seto."

Unspoken was the consent to that declaration, Seto could help them give the body its proper rights without being questioned by the police. Murder wasn't something any of them felt like being accused of.

Not quite daring to stay with the body, the three of them moved away and began down towards the entrance to where Jounouchi could find a phone to use. As Ryou passed, close to Bakura's side, his other touched his hand for a moment and Ryou, not wanting to draw attention, simply smiled in return, his chest swelling with gratefulness towards the gesture.

Only when the three were out of earshot, already by the bottom of the hill, did Isis move to follow them, and only then did Bakura decide to speak.

"Why did you lie to them?"

Isis paused again, "I didn't lie, Bakura, we do not know what happened any better than the most common of seers."

"Then why didn't you tell them everything we saw?"

"Because they need to forget. They need to move on. He really did die, in the end, because of the raging fever that storm gave him. Whether or not that fever was the means to an artistically planed end, and certainly not an end anyone living could have ordained, we will never know."

"He saw something before he died."

"It could just have been a delirious and desperate vision."

Bakura narrowed his gaze, seeming to pierce the sky with the potency of his storm grey eyes, "Are you so intent on avoiding answers that you would deny them any happiness?"

For the first time in a long time, Isis smiled, and spoke softly, "He died of normal causes, Bakura, that doesn't mean anything. We don't know what happens after death any more than we know what happened here, but… Yuugi can move on now," and with that small smile she closed her eyes and said, "They both can. Together."

In the distance, the sun, bright and pure, hung over the vast glittering ocean. On the edge of vision, where tranquil sapphire water met and merged with serene blue sky, where the wind blew clean and free and the birds floated effortlessly, there was only the sound of the air caressing the curving waves, far from the sounds of the city, in a sigh, like that of a lover's reunion.

**End**

_By Auster: Dated 19th May 2009_

**AN: **Whooo! Thank the Gods of Yaoi! It is done! Reviewers will be loved!

And yes, I will get right back onto King, so don't worry. Both it and a three-shot, 'Zoom-Lens', will be ready for your reading pleasure, or not as the case may be, soon. But I do have a question. I've stated up on my profile that Seven Seas and Firefly In Ice are on hiatus until I finished this, but now I have, does anyone actually want them anymore? I'm not sure.

Well, please review! Positive feedback is always loved!

Review!


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